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 every people must, when they turn away from Your righteousness, our people and nation have gone about to establish their own righteousness. On behalf of our nation, therefore, we confess those things that we believe to be our particular virtues, and in which we therefore trust. We confess the false narrative that has enabled us to turn away from You—we therefore confess our friendliness and generosity, our sacrifices for others, and the perverse notion that we are an exceptionable nation apart from Your grace.
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 as Your baptized and named people within this nation have been complicit in this sin. We confess to You that we have not presented the gospel with the clarity that Your Word requires, and which has therefore enabled our nation to slide from apparent righteousness to open and manifest folly and wickedness, and all without the effective protest and testimony from Your Church.
We confess our individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the great and good name of Jesus, and amen.
As those who have confessed their sin truly, the good news is summed up in the words no condemnation. I therefore say to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!