Let Somebody Send You | Before the Doors Open

First car in the lot, and you have not gotten out yet. Engine off. Keys still in your hand. It is quiet in a way it will not be again for nine hours. In about ninety seconds you will unlock a door and start speaking. To the drummer. To the person who cannot find the short mic stand. To a room. You will speak over all of it today. And nobody has spoken over you yet this morning.

So before you open the door. Somebody blessed a leader this way three thousand years ago, right before he went out. Psalm 20, verses one through five. World English Bible. "May Yahweh answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high, send you help from the sanctuary, grant you support from Zion, remember all your offerings, and accept your burned sacrifice. May he grant you your heart's desire, and fulfill all your counsel. We will triumph in your salvation. In the name of our God, we will set up our banners. May Yahweh grant all your requests."

Notice who is talking. This is not the leader praying for himself. This is the congregation praying over him before he walks out. They are the ones saying may Yahweh answer you. He is the one about to go into the day. They send him with words, and then he goes. And look at what they ask God to remember. Your offerings. What you brought. Not what you produced, not how the room responded, not whether the transitions were clean. The bringing.

You are the one doing the sending today. So this morning, before that starts, let somebody send you.

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, and may today not be one, and if it is, may he answer fast. May he send you help from the sanctuary, which this morning means from inside that building, through the people already pulling into the lot behind you. May he remember every offering you have carried through that door, the ones somebody saw and the ones nobody did. And may he grant your heart's desire, the real one, the one underneath the setlist. Not a flawless service. A room that meets God, and you in it, not just running it.

Go. The room is waiting. But more importantly, Jesus is already in it.