Most Sundays, I am an exceedingly privileged man, in that I get
to lead a congregation into the throne room of God. Often, I have
thought about what that looks like but never taken the time to write it out and
explain it. The images in my head certainly could never do it justice, so
perhaps my hesitancy to write about it has been that I didn’t want to lessen
the impact by trying to explain something that seemed beyond words.
This morning seemed different to me and the images seemed
more alive and real than anything I have envisioned in the past. For that
reason, I decided to jot it down and tell you about it.
What struck me at first was this idea that while I may be a
worship leader, there were thousands of other worship leaders all doing the
same thing at the same time. That thought brought humility as I realized that
God has entrusted me, as he has entrusted thousands of others, to lead His
people into His presence. It’s not that I am any more special than anyone else;
instead it’s that this is the role that God has designated me to do in the
broader scope of His redemptive work here on earth. I am fulfilling a purpose
set about for my life by the creator of the universe and the awesome thing is
that I get to do this.
So, let me explain what I imagined as I thought about
leading worship each week. Imagine, for a moment, a church building hundreds of
times bigger than anything here on earth. This building has very tall, arched
top, double doors all the way around it, exposing a sanctuary in the center and
in the center of the sanctuary is God, seated on His throne, overseeing all He
has made. Leading to the sanctuary are thousands of roads, coming from every
direction. On every road, coming from every direction, there are little groups
of people, all on their way to the very large church building. Every group is
singing and even though the songs being sung are all different, every group is
in harmony with the next.
Even though there were literally millions of people all
making their way to this large building, and you would think there would be
massive lines out the doors, instead there was plenty of room for everyone to
come inside. In fact, there was enough room that the crowd could triple in size
and there would still be extra space. Each person in each group seemed to have
a designated place in this massive building, but instead of it feeling like a
huge gymnasium, I remember feeling as if I was in an intimate setting, praising
God with the songs we had brought. There were all these people and yet I felt
so close to God and the amazing thing was that everyone was experiencing God on
that same personal intimate level, but we were all together, as one.
Backing up a little bit, I remember that as we were on one
of the roads, making our way to the house of God, an angel appeared next to me
and gave me instructions for once we were inside. It was kind of like being in
a parade and having the route director let you know where to turn and who to
follow and where to stand and so forth. I remember the angel being super
encouraging, letting us know we were almost there and to lift our voices to God
with spirits of thanksgiving. The angel didn’t seemed concerned about the exact
songs we were singing or which key we were in or why I was using a capo for my
guitar or any of the trivial things we get hung up on. Instead, the angel sang
along with us, harmonizing with us and everyone else as we praised God with
everything we had.
And that’s when it really hit me. The bible talks about how
we will take nothing with us into the next life and of course I believe that is
meant to refer to earthly things. But we will indeed travel into eternity with
our voices and I was struck with the power of God that when we at last come
into His presence, we will have our voices with which to praise Him. In fact,
it is all we will have but what a joy it will be to know that our God has given
us a voice to praise Him with and we will get to use it everyday!
So there we were, all of us, walking and singing on our way
to meet with God. We walked alongside angels and everyone was simply joyful.
There was no anxiety or worry about how we sounded, or if the words were being
projected properly up on the screen or if a note was played wrong somewhere by
someone, or any such thing. Those concerns simply did not exist. Instead,
everyone had a singular focus; everyone was unified as if there were one voice.
And in the midst of everything that was going on, I became
aware that my position as the worship leader of my small group was more of a
privilege than I could have ever imagined. I was being entrusted with leading
this group to this place filled with such joy. For a moment I felt as if I had
been given the greatest back stage pass ever, where I got to personally hang
out with the headliner but even better than that, I got to invite every person
I knew to be there too! This image became seared into my brain of me
introducing all these people to God, the single greatest headliner ever and
then, at the end, He shook my hand and all I could say was ‘thank you’.
God has been pruning and shaping me for some time now and
for a long time, I wondered what for. For the past several years I have been
praying in earnest for God to use me but more importantly, I have asked God to
humble me because I knew I needed that to happen before I could ever truly
serve Him, instead of serving myself. In the last year, God has laid out His
plans for my life and in doing so He has shown me the humility with which I am
to approach this calling.
My place is to serve others that they might discover the joy
that comes with being in His presence. My place is to lead people into a
meeting with a Holy God who desires to know each of us on a personal level. My
place is to introduce others to the mighty God, whose grace covers all. And my
place, on a daily basis, is to thank God because I get to do this.
