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 and God, we confess that we have become a openly lustful people. We confess that
we have become like the woman in Proverbs, who commits adultery, and then claims to have done nothing wrong. We know, Father, that lust has always been present, and is always an affliction, but we confess that we have given way to it, and now accept open displays of it. Father, we confess that in our advertising, in our entertainment, and in our fashions, we have simply come to expect it. Forgive our nation this great wrong, 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 the Church has not been salt and light in this area in the way that we ought to have been. Either we have drifted into the sin ourselves, or we have reacted away into a legalistic set of protections that are no protection at all. We confess our sin in this.
And Father, we also confess our individual sins to You now—Selah . . . We do this in the great and kind name of Jesus our Savior, and amen.
You are the people of God, beloved of Him. You have acknowledge your faults, and have done so honestly. So on the basis of the grace found in the gospel, I declare your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!