AUDIO: Readings & Sermon for Wednesday March 13, 2024

EMPTY WORDS (from the bulletin)
You are daily assailed by empty words: idle small talk, advertising
slogans, and news reports that play on your fears. Political and business
leaders spew cant, clichés, and spin. Perhaps even your friends and family
get in on the act, betraying you with flattery and falsehoods. King David
was only too familiar with such afflictions: “When one comes to see me,” he
said, “he utters empty words, while his heart gathers iniquity; when he
goes out, he tells it abroad” (Psalm 41:6). Our Lord’s powerful Word was
David’s refuge from vain and malicious talk. It is your refuge too. In
Baptism, Jesus Christ has lifted you out of the verbal cesspool and placed
you firmly on the rock of His Word. That Word is never empty, but it shall
accomplish that which He purposes for you.

View the Bulletin forWednesday, March 13, 2024
2:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
2:30 p.m. - 30 min. Bible Study following the 2:00 p.m. service
7:00 p.m. - Worship Service with Communion
All are welcome, bring a friend, neighbor or relative

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First Reading -- Psalm 52:1-9 
Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? 
The steadfast love of God endures all the day. 
Your tongue plots destruction, 
like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. 
You love evil more than good, 
and lying more than speaking what is right. 
You love all words that devour, 
O deceitful tongue. 
But God will break you down forever; 
He will snatch and tear you from your tent; 
He will uproot you from the land of the living. 
The righteous shall see and fear, 
and shall laugh at him, saying, 
“See the man who would not make 
God his refuge, 
but trusted in the abundance of his riches 
and sought refuge in his own destruction!” 
But I am like a green olive tree 
in the house of God. 
I trust in the steadfast love of God 
forever and ever. 
I will thank You forever, 
because You have done it. 
I will wait for Your name, for it is good, 
in the presence of the godly. 

Second Reading -- James 3:1-10 
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways, and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. 

How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 

Third Reading -- Matthew 26:57-62 
Then those who had seized Jesus led Him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders had gathered. And Peter was following Him at a distance, as far as the courtyard of the high priest, and going inside he sat with the guards to see the end. Now the chief priests and the whole Council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might 

put Him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.’” And the high priest stood up and said, “Have You no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against You?”