On November 15, Mark Pichaj taught us about “Christian Ethics,” as part of our 2025 men’s ministry teaching series, “Living in God’s Wisdom.” 

In doing so, Mark taught us the best way to ground our morality to order our lives around.

Immoral behavior is anything that explicitly violates God’s commands (1 John 3:4), reflects rebellion against God (Deut 9:7, Mark 7:20-23), serves to take the rightful place of God (Ex 20:3-5, 1 John 5:21), or falls short of God’s glory (Rom 3:23, Deut 32:4)

We must not follow unbiblical ethical frameworks that the World proclaims, such as the following:

• Cultural Relativism (When in Rome, do as the Roman’s do)
• Ethical egoism (Look out for Number 1)
• Natural law ethics (What comes naturally is moral).
• Situational ethics (It depends on the context).
• Utilitarianism (do whatever helps the most people)

All purpose and meaning begins, ends, and is found in Him, who has a morally perfect nature.  Therefore, we have a duty to seek out and obey His divine command, which is referred to as the “Divine Command Theory.”  We can find and live God’s divine command through:

• The bible, in particular the ten commandments (Ex 20:1-17) and the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7)
• Evaluating our motivation, because we know God sees the heart (Matt 15:18-20, Mark 7:6)
• Avoiding legalism, which is substituting rules for the Gospel (Col 2:16, Mark 7:8-9)
• Avoiding the other extreme to legalism: “license” in taking “freedom in Christ” too far (Rom 6:15-18, 1 Cor 6:12)