This psalm is both invocation and doxology, its lines nothing new. As a boy, I might rise from my pew at the end of a service and hear my father say these familiar words: “God be merciful to us and bless us, / And cause His face to shine upon us.” It was one of three benedictions he used.
Pop never used this psalm at the start of “preaching” or as part of the liturgy, just as a worshipful way of saying so long every third Sunday. I can’t recall a single invocation he used, and his only Doxology was the one in the hymnal. But his goodbyes — to his last breath — were memorable.