When I was in High School I took a drama class. It was the worst experience in my High School career. Nevertheless, in one assignment I had to act out a scene for the class. I pretended to wash my dad’s car, making my hard work much more obvious when he was looking, and shower him with praise so that he would let me take the car for the evening. I wondered, is this what religion teaches us to do with God? Do we picture God as a stern father needing to be won over by our show of dutiful display?

In contrast I thought of different incident. The first was when Rhonda and I started dating, she began to occupy my thoughts. I spent significant time planning elaborate dates and writing stories. I felt I would burst if I didn’t do something to act on that love. Sometimes love is bursting to come out. It’s spontaneous. It is such a different love than the dutiful display that seeks to win favor.

Paul begins with an outburst of his praise – his love – for God. It is such an important thing to grasp. His prayer in the following section is that God would open our eyes to see it, in the many ways it is expressed to us. Then, as he progresses through the letter we see how it is God’s love that shapes our understanding of the church and our relationships with each other and the world. It is only when we begin to understand God’s love for us that we will be moved to the kind of spontaneous bursts of praise that Paul shows us. It is an understanding of God’s love that separates Christianity from the idea of religion.

While most religions of the world speak about the things you have to do to get into God’s good graces or find peace, Paul writes about how everything is turned upside down for a Christian. Rather than start with the need to work hard to please God by living a good life he starts with the reality that our future is already secure. Every spiritual blessing already belongs to the Christian. It is this reality that moves him to live to please God. It is this reality that moves him to genuinely praise (as opposed to patronize) God.

God doesn’t want our praise so that we might win brownie points with him. He’s not looking for brown-nosers. Nevertheless God will have praise. Genuine praise comes when we begin to see who God really is, when we begin to grasp the nature of his love for us, and the work and thought that he puts into us. We are creatures created to worship something. That thing we genuinely worship is the thing that truly captures our attention. Teenagers know what its like to worship a sports car or a hot girl or guy. What Paul begins to do in the opening chapter of Ephesians is expound on the things that earn God this kind of heartfelt and spontaneous praise. He launches into the work of the Trinitarian God that turns hopeless and homeless people into happy and holy people and consequently leads us to genuine praise and worship. He overviews every spiritual blessing that we have in Christ. We’ll talk about these in terms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father elects (or predestines), the Son redeems, and the Spirit guarantees.

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