Confirmation Instruction Lesson 14

The Office of the Keys and Confession

How Do We Confess Our Sins?

Confession of our sins is an important part of our relationship with God; we often confess through prayer, and in the Fifth Petition of the Lord's Prayer we ask God to forgive us our trespasses or sins in the same way that we forgive those who injure us.

Jesus gave his disciples the power of the keys, twice, in Matthew 16: 19 and in John 20: 19 - 21. He gave them the power to accept or deny people's requests for forgiveness.

We may confess publicly, as part of a worship service (Confession 1 is from the old Lutheran service, and Confession 2 is more contemporary). There are several confessions in the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) for the corporate public confession of the congregation, or we may confess privately to our pastor. Lutheran private confession is often an informal discussion of our sins and concerns with the pastor.

Regardless of the form we use for confession, after confession we receive absolution, the sure knowledge that God has forgiven all our sins.

Quite often we sing (to many different tunes, some traditional, some contemporary) the wonderful words of Psalm 51: 10 - 12, Create in Me A Clean Heart, O God.

In thankfulness to God for his salvation and forgiveness, we design a t-shirt for our class on which we proclaim the good news, Christ died for us, and our sins are forgiven.

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