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 over all, we confess that as a nation, rottenness has entered our bones. We are not sound; folly is enthroned. We confess that this is not accidental—whenever someone suggests that perhaps we should return to the way that You have ordained, they are immediately shouted down. We confess that we do not want Jesus Christ to have the supremacy, and yet we continue to act as though the kind of salvation that only He can provide is nevertheless our birthright . . . but somehow apart from Him. We confess to you the great American folly of wanting salvation without a Savior.
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 that we have developed various workaround theologies that allow Christians to pay lip service to the supremacy of Jesus Christ, while at the same time refusing to grant that supremacy in any way that matters. Forgive us for this great sin, we pray.
We now confess our individual sins to You—and Selah . . . We do this in the perfect name of Jesus Christ, and amen.
The soul of a proud man is not upright. But you have humbled yourself and confessed your sins. Therefore, on the basis of the gospel of grace, as a minister of that grace, I declare to you that your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God!