Our Father and God, You have established Your Church as a royal priesthood in this world, and so we intercede for the nations of men now, confessing on their behalf so that the grace of Your forgiveness will soon be extended to them all.
Father, we confess that we do not understand our own history. We have forgotten how You have delivered our people again and again, and how we have let our gratitude slip away. And yet, had You not brought about these great deliverances, we would not be here today. Father, forgive us for our forgetfulness. But Father, our sin extends beyond forgetfulness—if any people among us do remember, we hold them in derision. Father, we pray that You would bring us to remember, recall, and express gratitude for our nation’s Christian founding.
We know, Father, that if we in the Church regard iniquity in our own midst, or in our own hearts, this prayer will be ineffectual
. So Father, we confess that we in the Church have allowed ourselves to be snowed by historians who have made their lying case that the golden calves brought us out of the land of Egypt. Father, forgive us for the ingratitude we have shown with regard to the history of the Church.
Father, we confess our individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the kind name of our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus, and amen.
The wonderful thing about God’s deliverances is that they can always be repeated. You have confessed your sins, and on the basis of all God’s promises, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!