Confession
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, You have invited us to come and reason together with You. Your most gracious and most reasonable invitation is for us to approach You that we might have our sins forgiven. But Father, our people, in the grip of arrogance and pride, have proclaimed that reason means that we cannot think of You or speak of You at all. In the name of reason, our philosophers and thinkers have embraced unreason, and we have followed them there. We have forgotten that it is most unreasonable for a pot to argue with its Maker, and now in our arrogance we won’t even stoop to do that. Father, America’s sins are scarlet—we confess them as Your people, and we look to You to make them white as snow.
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
. Every sin and crime that pollutes this land is also a pollution within the Church, and in many instances, the Church has led the secular unbelievers into high rebellion. Father, the Church belongs to You, and we pray that You deal with her sins, so that what is unshaken may remain. And Father, we now confess our personal sins to You—and Selah . . . We do this in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.
God does not just cleanse you of your sins. He also gives you understanding. He also equips you to learn doctrine. Because you have heard, because you have learned, because you have confessed, and because I am a delegated minister, authorized to tell you this in the name of another, I declare that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!