How to Kill a Zombie

Posted by on Oct 31, 2012 in Campus Church Announcements |

Learn to deal with the undead-dead in your life so that your destiny (and your brains) do not get eaten.
The Zombie

In recent years there has been emergence of a new player on the landscape of popular culture. It is none other than the Zombie.

The idea of zombie-like people actually originated with practicers of voodoo who use drugs, mind control and evil spirits to bring people to a comatose, yet living state. The silver screen helped us make a jump from a living person being dead-like to dead people being alive-like.

The Old Man

In case you are wondering (or worried), they are fictitious. The permanent place for zombies is in the world of imagination. They do not exist, but they do make a powerful metaphor for something you live with daily.

Romans 5:17 says “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”

This “body of death,” is often called the old man, or the carnal nature describing a propensity or pressure to sin.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

When we encounter Jesus Christ, our nature is rocked! We are then empowered to die to the old man and put on a new self. We receive a new heart, a new nature.

A zombie is a lot like our old man. The bible says it’s dead, but it thinks its alive. What do you get when you have something that is dead but thinks its alive? Something pretty ridiculous.  “Braaaaains!” We probably look pretty ridiculous too when jealousy, rivalries, immorality and other works of the flesh rise up to claim the life in us.

Paul describes this war that was going on inside him in Romans chapter seven. He said that his spirit was battling in him to do good but that sin was warring inside him to do bad things that he knows he shouldn’t do. So what do we do? How do you finish off this less that smart dead thing that is trying to kill your your walk with God?

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Colosians 3:5

Three Sure Fire Ways to Kill Zombies and Survive the Invasion Every Time

Choose your weapon, aim for the head and know when to run.

1. Choose Your Weapon

Like any zombie resistance you must first choose your weapon. And all weapons are not equal. A crowbar is not the same as a bazooka but all weapons are useful.

There’s the Starvation Weapon

Zombies like to eat. The problem is the more they eat the hungrier they get. That is at least how the flesh is. We have to understand that when we gratify sinful desires, it is going to ask more of us. I’ve heard lust described as a monster that grows when you feed it, so don’t.

The Reckon Weapon

I personally think this is the armored tank of killing zombies. In the verse below, Paul instructs us to simply believe that the old man is dead. Believe it.

Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:11 KJV

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6: 11 NIV

We live by faith whether we want to or not. If you believe that you’re “just a sinner saved by grace” or that “we always sin in word, thought and deed,” you will practice what you believe and sin.  If you believe “you are the righteousness of God in Christ” or that you are “alive unto God through Christ” you might land a little closer to the mark you are aiming for. So “reckon yourself dead to sin and alive unto God.” Your sinful past counts too. It is dead, gone. You have a living future.

Weapon of Light

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16

 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 1 John 1:7

Zombies just don’t do as well in the daytime. When we bring our stuff into the light, it has a way of losing its power.

2. Aim For the Head

Yes, aim for the head. When it is a zombie you are trying to kill, a head shot is the kill shot. But when it is the living dead of your flesh you are reckoning dead, you must aim for another head, that is Christ.  You see, we don’t win the battle of wrestling with our flesh in the flesh. We have to aim higher.

Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

If you want to be transformed don’t focus on the ugliness of your old man. Instead pursue an encounter with the Living God. Paul says when we behold the glory of the Lord with an open face we are transformed into the same image we are beholding (2 Cor. 3:18). Translation: we become what we behold. When we behold Him, the result is glorious.

3.  Know When to Run

One more word to the wise about fighting Zombies. Know when it is fighting time, and know when it is running time.

2 Timothy 2:2 Run from anything that stimulates youthful lusts. Instead, pursue righteous living, faithfulness, love, and peace. (NLT)

In his book The Overcoming Life, Rick Joyner makes an incredibly insightful statement about knowing when to hold em, when to fold em and knowing when to run. He says “The Bible does not tell us to overcome immorality,but to flee from it.” There’s a time to reckon, and a time to renounce, but there’s also a time to simply run away. Joseph ran from Potiphar’s wife. Solomon urges us not to even go near the adulteress’ house.

God knows that when it comes to temptation in sexually stimulating situations, wrestling is not the right move.  Who wants to flirt with the dead anyway. Run!

You Are the Victor

There are two forces in our lives that are looking for an expression, a dark kingdom and a kingdom of light.  You must decide to vanquish the zombie horde and live in the freedom that is already yours in Christ. Jesus Christ has made us “more than conquerors.”

What’s better than being the winner against he undead-dead? Being more than a winner. That’s you in Him.