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 gracious God, those who had been responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus were cut to the heart when they heard the apostle proclaim how God had raised Him from the dead. Father, we pray as Your people worship You this day, in the name of the resurrected Christ, that You would cut the people of our nation to the heart, such that we would see our complicity in every form of ungodly violence. We pray that what You do for us in this would be the healing cut of a surgeon, and not the death-dealing cut of a warrior. Have mercy on us—we know that we as a nation cannot have a righteous relation to violence unless we have a right relation to the violence of the cross.
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 Father, we pray that You would restore the preaching of the cross and resurrection in Your churches, so that the gospel would have the effect on our people that You intend for it to have.
We now confess our individual sins to You now—and Selah . . . We do this in the gracious name of Jesus Christ, and amen.
God raised up Jesus in order to grant repentance. We know in part that He did this great thing precisely because you have been given repentance. On that basis, as a minister of this gospel, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!