March 29, 2026 Bobby Dagnel - When Jesus Goes to Church

Bobby Dagnel — 2026-03-29

Chapters:

• 00:00 — Welcome & Introduction
• 03:38 — Jesus Cleanses Temple
• 06:42 — First: Pure Motives
• 16:04 — Second: Prayerful Anticipation
• 25:02 — Third: Redeeming Power
• 30:26 — Fourth: Celebratory Praise
• 37:33 — Closing Prayer

Transcript

0:08

And um, I know that sounds strange to those of us who uh, are in the the rhythm of worship on a daily basis, or a regular basis. And uh, but uh, you know, statistically, it still uh, indication is is that people uh, some I think it's 85% now, uh, that even in this post-church culture, will still respond to the invitation of an individual to join them in church. So uh, your friends and neighbors that live in the area, I hope you would encourage them to maybe be your guest next week and be a part of one of our two services and Mark will be here of course and uh I'll be here the week following and we'll have communion together. Uh, again, one of those communion Sundays that I'm here, but uh, we'll celebrate His resurrection, uh, next week and then we'll crucify Jesus again the next week. uh, you know, I I don't know the timing on that. Uh, but we we'll have communion together. Uh, today is Palm Sunday celebrating the triumphal entry of uh Jesus into uh Jerusalem. Uh, the unfolding events of the the passion week that are before us and uh, uh, in fact, in lot of that, if any of you are in East Texas this week, uh in in the Tyler area, uh Jim is actually going to be speaking Wednesday night at uh First Baptist Church. He's doing a thing on the eight days uh leading up to the to the resurrection. And uh, so I would encourage you if you're in East Texas to be a part of that. Patty and I are planning to attend and as always, we can uh anticipate Jim doing a wonderful job on that. We look forward to hearing him. Uh, if you have your Bible smart device, we're going to look at Matthew's gospel, chapter 21. The triumphal entry has uh, taken place, it's taking place in keeping with Zechariah 9, the prophecies uh of Zechariah, of this triumphal entry that that Jesus is making. And one of the things that is intriguing to me that I wanted us to consider this morning is that he makes this Jesus, our Lord has made this triumphal entry. Uh, he knows that suffering and death is before him. And and yet knowing what is going to unfold, Jesus saw it as being of of priority, going to church. Temple, if you will. Uh, and what I'm going to offer this morning, it's somewhat akin to in what Jesus is going to to deal with. It's not It's not unlike the little girl that went to her very first circus. Little girl goes to the circus and uh, she is just awestruck by everything that she's seeing and is and is just so wowed by by the circus and her family after they leave the circus, they go to grandma's house to have uh, have dinner with her and the little girl is telling her grandmother about the circus, her first time to see the circus and she's going blow by blow through every detail, everything she saw and experienced uh at the at the circus. She's telling him about the high wire act, the trap ease, the clowns. It was just, it was just overwhelming and she's getting more and more excited telling this story and finally when it reaches a crescendo of excitement, the little girl says, "Grandma, if you would just go to the circus one time, you would never be satisfied with church again." Well, Jesus goes to church. And what he discovers is a circus. And we know what happens. We see here in verse 12, Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. Jesus was disgusted and agitated by what he saw as being sacred space, being a sacred place that was designed for the people of God to come together in community and and to be a light unto the community. What had been intended to be a mission place had turned into a commercialized place. Jesus, of course, I want us to to note what he did here. He didn't attack persons, he didn't attack people, he didn't lay his hands on the people. What we could say he rearranged the furniture. He turned over the the tables. And what stands out to me is I as I study this account, as I I look at the actions of of Jesus. He knows that this is a a unique opportunity. It's the Passover is about to occur, it's about to take place. Pilgrims are coming into to to, all the people from all the known world are coming to to Jerusalem. The people of God are flocking there. These pilgrims, a community of urban area of some 200,000 people is now swelling to to a population of two and a half million people for for the Passover event. And what is meant to be a a holy occasion in the mind of Jesus, what agitates and what disturbs him is that is that this has become a place that is corrupted. commercialized. What is now taking place is gone far beyond anything for which the house of God would have been intended. So as I take liberties this morning and as we deal with what Jesus did in the temple, we can certainly carry this over to the church as well. And so it asked the question this morning, I guess what I'm asking us to ponder and to consider is what is it that Jesus looks for when he goes to church? What is it that Jesus was longing for and wanting? What was Jesus looking for when he went, when he went to the temple? Why was he so agitated and disturbed? What do we draw from that? What is it when Jesus joins us when Jesus is here in spirit and we're two or more gathered? When we understand the omnipresence of God, that there's never a place where God is not. And we believe by faith and trust that our resurrected Lord is is here with us now. What is it that he's looking for? What he looks for today and in his church, is no different than what he was looking for then. The first thing that I would offer as we begin to glean through this text is that what Jesus looks for when he goes to church is pure motives. Purity of heart. Blessed are the pure in heart. He, he's looking for those that come to worship with with pure motives. Notice again, I've read it already, but verse 12, and Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all of those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds. And he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. What Jesus is looking at is something and what Jesus is observing is something that that has been corrupted. And it's really not much of a departure. In fact, I I would say this is a fulfillment of what of the instructions that King Hezekiah gave back in uh back in second Chronicles, the temple's about to reopen. He gives these instructions to the to the Levites, to the priests.

The king says says to them in second Chronicles 29: 7:45

5, he says, "Carry out the filth from the holy place." Carry out the filth from the holy place. This is a place that's meant, meant to be unique. It's meant to be distinctive. It is it is for an intentional purpose for the people of God to come together as a unique and distinctive people, a community of faith, what we would call a sacred space for God's people to to recognize me, to give honor and glory to me. Now what disturbs Jesus now is he sees hearts that are lacking in purity. He, he sees hearts that are motivated by profit, commercial opportunities. Now, part of there are several things that I could allude to here that that are disturbing to Jesus. If if we are if we would presume to know the heart and the mind of of our Lord, but you'll notice that this took place there in the in the outer courts, the temple, the the temple area. But he was in this outer court, the Gentile what what is called the the court of the Gentiles. It's where those who were non-Jews would would gather. And for always, the hope of Israel was that it would be a light unto the world that because of the testimony and and the witness of Israel that that they would be a light to the rest of the world and that others might be drawn to them. And now this outer court, this court for the Gentiles that that was intended to be a mission place that they might come that they might become a part of the people of God. Now that's become just a commercialized space. The Jews instead of being a light unto the world, they they've now shown their bias and their prejudice against the non-Jews. These these are an insignificant people. Oh, they're not really interested in the things of God. Let's use, let's use their grounds, let's use the temple court for the money changers. She brings to another issue, I think is very disturbing to Jesus in in this context. It has to do with with exploitation. All these pilgrims are coming to to Jerusalem. This influx of of Jews, they needed temple currency, their Roman currency had to be exchanged for for temple currency, and of course there was a fee attached to that and the fees were exorbitant. Now there's there's exploitation. There's there's price gouging. You know all these these pilgrims coming in, traveled from great distances. You know, uh, you know, we try to pack light for our vacations and our getaways, don't we? I mean, there's a there's a great contrast between the way I pack and the way Patty packs. I, my goal and my objective is to see what all I can get into a backpack. Well, she doesn't travel like that. But when we take trips, we, we leave with the intention, don't we? of trying to pack light. And I and I bet some of you like me, you know, when I think about things I could pack, I just say, you know what, I I think I I'm not going to fool with packing that and carrying that, I'll just buy it when I get there. Have you all ever done that? Let's just buy it when we get there. These pilgrims are no different. Instead of trying to, you know, take a bunch of dove with us, you know, and and lamps and uh animals, whatever else they might have needed for for sacrifice. They said, we're not going to, we're not going to take those with with us, we'll just buy them when they when we get there. Exorbitant prices you wouldn't believe, price gouging. Taking advantage because they they knew these things had to be had if they were going to participate in the Passover and the celebration that was going to unfold. And so Jesus, Jesus saw these things, he's disturbed by by these things. That which was intended for for sacred space, for sacred purposes. Oh, Jesus sees it now being corrupted by secular intentions. You know, part of my role as a pastor for 37 years, 41 years in in ministry, but 37 years as a as a pastor, one of the things that that I always considered as a part of my prophetic role as a pastor, my prophetic task that that in fact, this really became, I mean in this day and time, it probably became my greatest burden and responsibility, and it was protecting the church from secular intentions. Is protecting the church as a pastor, as an overseer, as an under shepherd, I felt this burden to protect the church to keep what we did on Sunday, to keep it something that that was sacred and holy that that held forth the kingdom of God. And I realized as a pastor there there are those that listen, it would be easy if the devil describe if the devil was always in a red suit and a pitch fork and a red, you know, a red outfit. That'd be real easy. But the greatest threat was always within, those that had their own agendas. Pastor, why don't you get Pastor, you know, I I sit on the board with this celebrity Christian. Why don't we why don't we have him into our church? I've already spoken with him. He'd love to come here. No, we don't do celebrity Christianity. That's not what I'm trying to perpetuate. That may build a crowd, but it doesn't build a church. I'm interested in making disciples. Oh, you're not cutting edge enough, pastor. Pastor, so and so, politician is a friend of mine. You know, we got this election cycle coming up coming up. He'd love to come, he'd love to come speak to our congregation. You know, we don't do that. If anything as a pastor, my burden, my prophetic role is to say to my people that that the kingdom of God is not of this world. I don't want my people putting as an under shepherd, I I want my people to have a hope and a faith and a trust that in a kingdom that transcends the kingdoms of men. Well, pastor, you don't sound very patriotic. Pastor, what about this holiday? What about this holiday? Are we going to do this? You know, and of course, in my mind, I'm thinking, shall we dare to be a people who would want to pastor that that would just study the word, be influenced by by the person of the Holy Spirit, and that in this dynamic relationship between pastor, under shepherd and the Spirit of God and a congregation that we would allow God to speak through us in this dynamic relationship that he has given us with one another. But I found as a pastor there were always those that were seeking to be robbers in the den. Those who wanted to cloud and muddy the waters with with the earthly, with with the temporal at the expense of the eternal. Now when when Jesus goes to church, he looks for for pure motives for those that worship that desire to worship only him who is the giver and taker of life. There's a second thing that Jesus looks for when he goes to church, not just pure motives, but also this this prayerful anticipation. That's what we have here in verse 13. And he said to them, it is written, my house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it into a den of robbers. Now what what Jesus has done, he's justified his actions, his turning over the tables and cleaning out the house of God. He's justified it here with with the text that you actually find, he's quoting something here that you can that you can actually find in in Jeremiah and Isaiah both. The great prophets of Israel. And listen, these great what we call what we know is the leading prophets of Israel, Jeremiah and Isaiah, the the voices of Israel. You know, they they weren't popular until after they were dead and gone. That's always the way it is. You're never more blessed, more popular than when you're either you're gone or you're dead. Because Israel stoned the prophets, their message was not popular when they were preaching it. But now he has he is quoting this and he's justifying his actions there in the temple, quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah, and and in each of those texts, what Jesus would have us to recognize is that each one of these and going back to the prophets and he's emphasizing it now himself is that they and he made much of the house of God. Now you could counter, you could say, well pastor, Jesus would say there is there is one here greater than the temple. And I get that. And I would advocate that when it's time to preach that text. But Jesus wants us to recognize there there is something significant about the house of God. There is something significant still about a place that we would designate for for worship. That there is still something significant about God's people gathering together in community that the place of worship is important. And I get the argument. to say, well, aren't there more pressing issues in our world that we ought to be dealing with than than what happens inside these four walls? But what Jesus wants us to understand, and it kind of goes back to the old simple proverb that how you do how you do any one thing is how you do everything. That what we do in here, how we, how we understand this to be something sacred, that how we approach this has a very real impact upon our attitudes and our actions out there in the four walls of the world, if you will. That the weight and the gravitas and the importance that we give to this carries over to our actions and our attitudes out in the world. You know, every church staff I've served, I had a different kind of story and experience in coming to Christ. I wasn't raised in church. Didn't become a Christian until I was 21. I didn't walk inside a church until I was 21 years of age. And what I've what I've tried to emphasize to staff because frankly, most of the staff that I've ever served with in all of my churches through through the years, I'll say all, there weren't really that many, but in the churches that that I served, these staff members, most of them grew up in church. They went to a faith-based university, they went to a faith-based seminary, and they've always been in the bubble of church. And they all look to they all want to be culturally relevant. And they all feel like we need to we need to create a worship service that is attractive to the world. Now if we want lost people to come to church. Oh, we've got we've got to make it something that that they would want to hear. And I would try to tell them, you know, when I was growing up in Tyler, Texas, I I wasn't coming to faith. my my lack of not coming to faith wasn't because Tyler didn't have churches. I didn't wake up on Sunday morning wondering what's happening down at First Baptist Church. What's happening over at this church and that church. Never was on my radar screen. As a 21 year old man when a coworker, frankly, asked me about my faith, and I lied to him, but I knew I was going to have in my life what that man had in his life. By that evening. And when I went and talked to the only pastor I knew who would, who would help me to understand what it meant to be a follower of of Christ, and he told me to be in church the next morning and he was going to baptize me Sunday night. You know, I went to that church with fear and trepidation because I knew I was I was entering into a world with which I was not familiar. And that was a good, healthy tension. That I'm entering into these play, into this place, and these people have something that I do not have, but I desperately want. I'm longing for it, but I I recognize that this is something to be the people of God. This is something into which I, I, one must be inculcated. Now, I didn't use that word inculcated back then. But I I realized they they know things, they're experiencing things, they understand sacred things that I don't really understand. And I would try to explain this to staff, you know, to my staff in that and I would use the analogy of John the Baptist. John, when John the baptizer was was baptizing in the river, when the crowds were flocking to John the Baptist, they weren't looking for what they already knew. They had experienced everything that the world had had to offer them. They had experienced everything that their Jewish faith had had to offer them. There was something wanting, there was something missing. And so they go to the river to see John the Baptist because they're hungry and they're desperate for something different. I was desperate. I was hungry for something different than what the world, I had everything else the world had to offer. I'd sought out all those experiences. I'm going to tell you, if I'd gone to that first church service as a 28-year-old, 21-year-old new believer, hadn't been a believer 24 hours. But if I had gone into that service and that service sounded and looked like a kiss concert that I just been to two weeks ago, I would have been terribly disappointed. That this looks like everything else that I've seen and experienced in life. I knew that I was walking into a place that was different, that was unique, that was distinctive. And I hope we never lose that as a community of faith, as a people of God that there is that we're going to enter into this place, we're going to enter into worship with a prayerful anticipation of how God is going to work, of how God is going to speak and we we best hear that, we best experience that here in a place like this where the noise of the world, and listen, I'll be the first one to tell you, there's really no distinction between the sacred and the secular. All space is sacred in God's in God's world. There's never there's not a place in this world where God is not. And that's the problem we have sometimes. We want to distinguish between the sacred and the secular when when really our healthiest approach to understanding the life of faith is when is when we deem it all as being sacred. All of life is a sacred gift from God. But when we come here as a unique and distinctive people, there should be this prayerful anticipation of how God is going to speak to me, how he is going to change me, how he is going to challenge me in my relationship with him. There's a third thing that Jesus looks for when he goes to church. Notice in verse 14, what I'm calling is is redeeming power. He goes to church looking for redeeming power. But when uh, oh, verse 14, it says, and those who who were blind, and those who limped, came to him in the temple area and he healed them. Well now my first thought was, now, now that the temple has been healed, now that we've gotten rid of those with impure motives. Now that we've gotten the commercialism out out of the church, now that now that the church has been healed, now that the temple has been healed, now some real healing work can take place. Now some real power can be can be unfolded. Now some real work of redemption and renewal and restoration can be accomplished in the hearts and the minds of those who hunger for the paths of righteousness. You know, a passage like this to me always raises the question that we sometimes ask. Do these kind of miracles still taking place today? Is God still performing the miraculous, the lame walking, the blind seeing. And when I when I hear that, I feel it's a kind of a question that sets you up and I try to respond in a way that broadens our understanding of the miracles because because these these miracles that Jesus was was performing and I've mentioned this to you before that that these spectacular manifestations of power, the deaf hearing, blind seeing, lame walking, these were all they these were miracles of the moment. Miracles of the moment to to reveal and to manifest the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. And and they're anomalies in biblical history. I mean, you you see it in the in the life and ministry of Moses, Joshua somewhat. And then you really don't see these spectacular manifestations again until the ministry and the life of Elijah, somewhat Elisha. And then really not again until until the life and the ministry of Jesus. And so in these unique periods, we see this this this manifestation of miraculous power for a particular reason to proclaim the inbreaking of the kingdom of God. So my definition of the miraculous to which you and I are called and which you and I participate, it's much bigger than the than the miracle of the moment because you know what the common thread is among all of those that Jesus healed? The blind that now see, the lame that now walk, the deaf who now hear. You know what's unique to each and every one of those? They all died. They all died. God used them in that moment. That that was a miracle of the moment, but every one of those individuals, they died. And God used each one of those miracles of the moment as a representation of something that was for eternal and forever. The greatest miracle that humanity has ever experienced is the salvation of a soul. Now, in our minds, that may not have the wow effect of the the dead raising, the the lame walking, the blind seeing. But Jesus makes it a point. He says to us as disciples, to his disciples then, you're going to do greater miracles than I ever did. This is what he was speaking to. You, you are going to be used by God. You're going to be my missional presence in the world. God's spirit is going to use you. He's going to use each and every one of us in as we bear testimony of our faith, as we bear testimony of Christ in us. God is going to use us in the intersections of all of life as a part of the process, a link in the chain of bringing others to a saving knowledge of me. And so when Jesus goes to church, he's looking for that kind of of redeeming power, that kind of anticipation of knowing that as we focus our hearts and our minds upon him, as we go out into the world and we continue this worship of obedience, oh we're a part of God's redeeming power being made manifest in the world. You see why we have to keep this pure in here? I mean what we're talking about is the kingdom of God, the redeeming the redeeming love of God and the grace of God. Why would we ever want to corrupt that with outside things? Fourth and final thing of what Jesus looks for when he goes to church, not just pure motives and prayerful anticipation and redeeming power, but also celebratory praise. It says in verse 15 and 16, but when the chief priest and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple area, Hosanna to the son of David, they became indignant. And they said to him, do you hear what these children are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, have you never read from the mouths of infants, this is Psalm 8, 1 and 2. Have you never read from the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise for yourself. Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany. You see who's upset, the religious establishment. Jesus comes in and does something that is different. What Jesus is bringing to the table is something with which they are unfamiliar. It's something that is different. It's something that transcends their personal preferences. But they Matthew here acknowledges that what Jesus has done, he describes it as what Jesus has done. These these are wonderful things. Isn't it beautiful? I mean, he says, these are these are wonderful things. The life and the ministry of Jesus. He's he's doing wonderful things. And what was the response of the denomination? The religious establishment? They were indignant. It was a threat to their position. It was a threat to their structure. It was a threat to their familiarity. Let's just get to the chase. It was a it was a threat to their power. I mean the the religious establishment, they were in they were in bed with pilot, they were in bed with the Roman government. Oh, they had they had position, power, prestige. And Jesus came as as a threat to their system. And there's always going to be, as old as the people of God is there's always going to be those that are indignant. You ever been in a church where people were just yeah, those that were just indignant. You know, God, God can be doing great things around us. Lives being transformed. And there's always those in every church and every place, those like these who are indignant, who cannot celebrate the wonderful things that God is doing. Oh, you see it in their attitude, you see it in their body language. Now they're not doing it the way we used to do it. They're not doing it according to my to my preferences. They're always measuring everything of what's done. They're measuring it against their own experiences and I mean, how what a myopic worldview that that that my experience all the sudden is is the litmus test for the legitimacy of everybody else's experience. But what what Jesus is looking for is this kind of, he's looking for those who understand praise and worship, those that that celebrate. And the only reason they celebrate is because they know they are in the presence of God. And and being called to worship, they they honor him and they praise him. They give glory to him for no other reason than who he is. It transcends circumstances. My my capacity to worship and to praise and to glory to God is not dependent upon circumstances, whether they're they're favorable or or unfavorable. Now I I want to be that one regardless of circumstances who can come and gather with the spirit of celebratory praise. But you know where real praise and worship takes place? Is once we have come here and we've celebrated and we've worshiped, praised, we give thanks to God that he has made us a part of his salvation history, a part of his redemptive plans and purposes. The highest praise and glory we give to him is when we go out here and live obediently. When we live our lives faithfully. It doesn't matter how high we jump in here, it's how straight we walk out there. That's the highest praise that we can give to the Father. Lord, use my, use my hands. Use my feet to glorify you. Someone sent me a prayer years ago. They had noted it in a midweek prayer service. This elderly man was called upon to to close this particular service. And he wrote down this prayer and shared it with me. He wrote it down as best he he could remember. But the prayer goes like this, "Oh Lord, we will praise thee with an instrument of 10 strings. We will praise you with our two eyes by looking unto you. We will exalt you with our two ears by listening only to your voice. We will extol you with our two hands by working in your service. We will honor you with our two feet by walking in the way of your statutes. We will magnify you with our tongue by bearing testimony to your loving kindness. We will worship you with our hearts by loving only you. We thank you for this instrument, Lord. Keep it in tune. Play upon it as you will and ring out the melodies of your grace. May its harmonies always express your glory." That's what Jesus looks for when he goes to church. Let's pray. Father, as we reflect upon that triumphal entry, Lord, we have the benefit of hindsight. We have the benefit of knowing what is to come. We know that what is now a triumphal moment will give way to a cross. We'll give way to what appears to be defeat. What appears to be a state of hopelessness. And yet Lord, even in that, it gives way to victory. Father, we have many burdens that weigh upon us. Each one of us in this room, we we know of circumstances in life that that would seek to overwhelm us. And yet, how grateful we are that we can come together in a sacred gathering, in what we have deemed a sacred place at a sacred time, casting our burdens, as the Psalmist says, casting our burdens upon you, knowing that you are able to sustain us. with that hope and that confidence that the victory will ultimately be realized. And Father, how grateful we are for that hope. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.