I have probably said this before, but I love all things sci-fi. If a new movie or sci-fi show comes out, I have to watch it…the problem is that most of the new shows are horrible, boring, rote, trite, or any other number of adjectives used describe shows that have overused ideas. Take for example this show called “The 100.” It is sort of a Lord of the Flies meets dystopian future after a nuclear holocaust where there are 100 people sent to earth to see if they can survive.
 
At one point there is this guy that no one likes, but he gains an unlikely following and brings mayhem to the struggling culture of survival. He is wicked, heinous, and now murderous, as he wants to kill a 10-year-old girl.
 
After a very lengthy, and not very interesting, build up, the little girl takes her own life to save her friends from this monster. As soon as this happens, everyone’s minds return to reality and this murderous individual no longer has a following. Instead of taking this murderous guy out (by ‘out’ I mean OUT), they ‘banish him;’ which we all know only leads to some future return of this guy at an inopportune moment, to wreak havoc on the fledging society.
 
When I saw this I thought it was a great analogy to the Christian life and Easter. Our sin wants to murder us, it causes us to go crazy and do stupid things that destroy people and relationships around us. When we finally come to a moment of lucidity, when we see things clearly, we know we should kill our sin…but instead we banish it, thinking that is good enough, but in reality we know deep inside sin will rear its ugly head again when we least want it to.
 
John Owen once said, “be killing sin or it will be killing you.” The Apostle Paul says in Romans 8:12-13 “So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

On what we now celebrate as Good Friday, Jesus goes to the cross because sin causes death. Jesus died the death we deserve to die, not just for 100 of us, but all of us. The deeds of the flesh must be put to death, but how do we do that? By becoming alive, living in the Spirit, and walking in His strength…which is the point of Easter. Resurrection takes us from our place of death, where sin left us, and brings us back to life again. Jesus’ death removes the sin; His resurrection brings us to life with Him (and in) Him.
 
The way you kill sin is with the Spirit, it is why Paul says, “by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body.” John Piper says the best way to live in the Spirit is by staying in the Scriptures. Piper’s mother used to say to him, “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.” It is the same idea; the scriptures connect us with hearing God’s Spirit, which gives us strength to kill sin.
 
In one sense sin was crushed at the cross, it’s demise has been heralded and witnessed at the cross (Good Friday), our hope for real and new life comes in the form of Easter and Resurrection, and the only death we need truly concern ourselves with is the death of the old ways in which we used to walk. For, though sin has been defeated, our flesh still craves it…so be killing sin or it will be killing you.
 
Happy Good Friday.