Worship By Means of Confession

This summer our church is doing a preaching series on the doctrine of the church. We are discussing a variety of aspects, and one facet we will discuss is the worship of the church. Most often, when people conceive of the idea of worship, they picture instruments, choirs, and hearty singing by the congregation. This is certainly an aspect of worship, but one must also understand that worship consists also of things like preaching, giving, and prayer.

Concerning this latter category, John Calvin took great care to ensure that the worship in his church services included various prayers. Often in Reformed churches the service began with a prayer of confession, to ensure that the hearts of the pastor and the congregants were in the right place before delving into the rest of the service. What follows is a sample prayer that Calvin prayed at his services to prepare his own heart as well as the hearts of his people. Often our own church experiences can find us talking freely before the service, checking email, or perhaps coming in late. May we, as either pastors or congregants, consider our need to pause, reflect, and confess our sin to God as an act of worship on Sunday mornings in order to benefit from the rest of the service to an even greater degree.

O Lord God, eternal and almighty Father, we confess and acknowledge truthfully before your holy majesty that we are poor sinners, conceived and born in iniquity and corruption, prone to do evil, incapable of any good, and that in our depravity we transgress your holy commandments without end or ceasing; therefore, we purchase for ourselves, through your righteous judgment, our ruin and damnation. Nevertheless, o Lord, we are grieved that we have offended you, and we condemn ourselves and our sins with true repentance, begging your mercy to relieve our distress. O God and Father most gracious and full of compassion, have mercy on us in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. And as you blot out our sin and stains, magnify and increase in us day by day the grace of the Holy Spirit, that as we acknowledge our unrighteousness with all our heart, we may be moved by that sorrow that shall bring forth true repentance in us, mortifying all our sins and producing is us the fruit of righteousness and innocence that are pleasing to you, through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Jeremy Kimble (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Cedarville University. He is an editor for Credo Magazine as well as the author of That His Spirit May Be Saved: Church Discipline as a Means to Repentance and Perseverance and numerous book reviews. He is married to Rachel and has two children, Hannah and Jonathan