Father, our national condition of sin is desperate. We want to be known as virtuous, but still want to keep our sin. We want the accolades that come from righteousness, but do not want the trouble of actually being that way. And so we posture and pretend. We pray, therefore, on behalf of a corrupt people, for the grace of a real self-knowledge. We pray that Your holy law would reveal our true condition to us—the condition of our courts, our legislatures, our president and governors, our artists, our writers, and our poets. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would end, and in a dramatic fashion, the hypocrisy charade, so that we might truly confess our sins as a people.
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.
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And Father, we confess that we in the Church have been content with verbalizing what Your Word says, but we confess that we have not done it. Like the world outside, we have unhappy marriages carefully hidden. We have greed and avarice disguised as a work ethic. We have lust wrapped up in pretences of Christian liberty. Forgive us our posturing, we pray.
Father, we confess our own sins to You now, and not the sins of others—and Selah . . . We do this in the great name of Jesus, and amen.
You have confessed your sin. You know it was the Spirit who convicted you because you went deeper into it than you would ever have done on your own. So hear the gracious kindness of your God. He has heard your cry, and He has seen the blood of Jesus Christ. Your sins are therefore forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!