Premature Praise

Premature Praise By: Pastor Lorenzo Edwards

New St. Paul Empowering Life

Luke 1:41

12/13/2009

In just a couple of weeks families will be getting together eating food and having a good time celebrating the day we call Christmas. Christmas is the day that we celebrate the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. Many people are waiting to the 25th of Dec. to exchange gifts. They are eager to see what they are going to have under the Christmas tree. But I want to remind you that this season is not about what’s under the tree but it is about the one who died on a tree. How many know that God has given us the greatest gift of all. His Son Jesus Christ.

My kids just this week handed me their Christmas list. A list that consisted of toys and games. As they came in the room with their list their eyes was wide and there was a smile upon their faces. Why? Because Christmas is near. Christmas is not here but Christmas is near.

So what my children had was a premature praise, on what they were going to get in the future. They have high expectation on what they are going to receive in the future because they gave it to their father. And it is up to the father to fulfill what they had wished for. (I am going somewhere with this)

And if my children have enough faith in their earthly father shouldn’t the children of God have more faith when they put their wish list in the hands of our Heavenly Father. Because the Bible clearly says in 1st Peter 5:7 “Cast all your cares upon me because I careth for you.”

It did not say cast all your cares upon your earthly Father but it is referring to our Heavenly Farther. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” Matt 7:11 (KJV)

If little children can come before their farther with smiles on their faces and a request in their hand. We as men and women of God should be more confident when we bring a request to our Heavenly father.

The Bible says “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. 7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”Phil 4:6-7 (KJV)

And I believe that God would have never asked for your request if he did not attend to fulfill it. (Can I get a witness?)

Just like children coming to their parents with premature praise, we are to be able to praise God before we receive the blessings. When there is a premature praise, you are not waiting for the miracle to happen you are praising God before it happens. Because you believe and trust God so much that you don’t have to wait till the battle is over you can shout now.

That’s why the Bible says speaks though things that’s not as though they were. Because when you speak it you are telling God I believe it. It may be a premature praise but that premature praise will one day grow up as a full grown Blessing. I wish I had some help in here. Tell your neighbor praise God before it happens.

And it is amazing as we look at our text this morning that when Mary ran to tell her cousin Elizabeth about what the Angel Gabriel said unto her. That the Babe John leaped in her womb. Here it is a baby that was only six months old. Don’t just sit in the womb when he hears the good news but began to leap.

It has been discovered through ultrasound that a baby that has been in the womb for six months can move around, sleep stir kick and hear. But in all my findings I could not discover where the baby can leap while in the womb. Now the Greek word for leap here in our text is skeer-tah-o’. Which means to leap for joy, skip, jump, sympathetically move.

Whenever somebody hear the name of Jesus and His coming there shall be some leaping for joy, their shall be some praise, there shall be some sympathetic movement. Whenever somebody hears the name of Jesus and His coming there shall be some shouting. Jesus is coming somebody shout.

Jesus said Himself “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” Luke 19:40 (KJV). I don’t know about you but I don’t won’t know rocks crying out for me. I can praise Him all by myself.