Father in Heaven, You are the one who created us male and female, and it was one of Your great gifts to us. We confess to You now that our nation has fallen into a great confusion about this. We no longer even know what marriage is, and we have raging political debates over what ought to be the most obvious thing in the world. Father, we know that this problem is moral, and not intellectual. Forgive us our prideful confusion and ignorant arrogance, we pray.
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.
Father, we confess that we have not modeled Christian marriage and family the way we ought to have done. The world has been watching, and we confess that we have represented the grace of human sexuality poorly. Forgive us for this, we pray.
Father, we confess our own sins and failures to You now—and Selah . . . We pray this in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.
You have been reconciled to God, and you have been reconciled through body of Jesus on the cross. Thank Him for all His goodness to you. Having been reconciled, you have been enabled to confess your sins properly, and as a consequence, the Lord has heard you. As a minister of Jesus Christ and His gospel, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!
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