Loving God With Our Whole Lives (Deuteronomy 5:6-7; 6:4-9)

Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast. Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW is a community of students learning to love Jesus, to love others, and love our campus. We’re a group for the convinced and the unconvinced, the confident and the doubting, the struggling and the seeking. Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This fall, we’re focusing on the book of Deuteronomy and the Ten Commandments. Tonight’s message looks at the first word, or first command: “You shall have no idols before me.” Notes and Quotes: What is Covenant Theology? - Ligon Duncan “Our security in our relationship with [God] is not fundamentally based on our deserving or our acting, but on his initiative, his acting, his upholding.”— Ligon Duncan. “We are made for single-minded allegiance… We are made in the image of the one God to bear the image of one God. We cannot conform to both the image of God and an idol.”- Jen Wilkin “At least in public, we might think, our secular society has scoured the idols. That's wishful thinking. Modernity manufactures as many idols as any age. Mammon rules the market. We kill to keep ourselves comfortably surrounded by more and new stuff. "Follow your heart" replaces "Thus saith the Lord" as the unquestioned cultural imperative. Nations claim authority over our bodies and souls, demanding patriotic sacrifice on the altar of the nation. --Peter Leithart “God is the ultimate presence, the one who is closest to us, the one with whom, of all persons, we have the most to do. He is not far away from us; indeed, he is always inescapable. We live coram Deo [before God’s face]. So God sees all we do, and he evaluates all we do, in blessing and in judgment. Yet he not only evaluates our conduct, but also draws near to give grace, undeserved favor, beyond anything we can ask or think. He sent his Son to dwell among us (John 1:14) and to die the death we deserve. He sends his Spirit to comfort, sanctify, and lead us into all truth. Our ethical life is a deepening of that relationship, a walking together with God.” -John Frame "Q. What does [the first commandment] mean? A. We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things.” — Martin Luther, Small Catechism, Q& A 1