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, as a nation we have sought to be governed by our own wisdom, our own word, in our own name, and we confess that we have made a frightful mess of it. Father, for various reasons we have thought that we have outgrown the need for a transcendent reality, and we have drifted into a soul-destroying relativism. We have discovered, Father, that we have no ability to banish gods without summoning the demons, and so we confess our moral stupidity to You. On behalf of a foolish and stiff-necked people, we cry out to You.
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.
And so, Father, we confess the fact that our nation has been led into this flagrant disregard of Your holy Word through a similar disregard of Your Word in the Church, among the people who are called by Your name. Teach us our fault, gracious Father, so that we might repent of it.
We now confess our own individual sins to You—and Selah . . . We do this in the strong name of Jesus, and amen.
When God relieves your guilt, and takes it away, you no longer need to say, “I am sick.” You no longer need to lament your faults, for they are forgiven. On the basis of the glorious gospel of grace, I say to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!