SIT, WALK, STAND by Watchman Nee

When I was a new Christian the book Sit, Walk, Stand was popular among my fellow believers. Somehow I think we were a different breed back then. (The High School Fellowship I went to at Cumberland Presbyterian Church actually had a 40 year reunion last year….)

At any rate, I read this book along with everyone else. And I sort of understood it in the sense that I could read the words, look up the Bible verses and so on.

But just recently I was reading a book my son lent me called Safe And Sound, about spiritual warfare. And the author made a lot of references to Ephesians. It made me remember Nee’s book.

It is a short book with three chapters, apparently collected from sermons Nee gave. The first chapter is, guess what…. “Sit.” The second is “Walk” and the third, well, I’m sure you can see the pattern.

In re-reading this book I was surprised to find how much it resonated with me. The main premise is that we start by sitting—by resting in God. Paul tells us that we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies: “…and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:6).

My problem with this when I first read it—and I admit that the book made it easy to take this view—was that I saw this as “positional” and therefore abstract and unrelated to day-to-day life.

What does it mean to be seated in the heavenly places? If we think of it relationally it takes on a different aspect. It means that right now I am sitting with Christ at the right hand of God. And that means that I have perfect, unobstructed access to the Father. Because I am close to him, he hears everything I tell him and knows everything I am up against. That means I have absolutely nothing to worry about or fear. “If God is for you, who can be against you?”

I am reminded of the passage in Ecclesiastes: “…God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few” (Ecclesiastes 5:2). For us, because of what Christ has done, this is not true! We are right there, seated with Christ in heavenly places! And so we can go before the Father with boldness in everything. I believe this makes a big difference in our lives, and is something not very many Christians practice.

This idea that we rest with God is all over the New Testament. It is implicit in the Sermon on the Mount (especially Matthew 6) and explicit in Hebrews 4. Romans 8 gives another perspective on it.

From this perspective of rest, sitting with God, living in the presence of Jesus through his Spirit who empowers us, we are able to walk. It is important to realize that we cannot walk until we sit. Until we have learned to rest with God and rely on him to empower and enable us, we will beat our heads against what we perceive to be the impossible demands of the Christian life. Love the unlovely? Endure the unendurable? Forgive the unforgivable? How can I? But Christ can, and as we rest in him, we find his power enabling us. We are then able to walk worthily of the calling with which he has called us, because we have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith (Ephesians 3:14-19).

An important insight here is that God does not give us love, or patience, or forgiveness. (Nee used the analogy of buying packaged goods—some of this, some of that.) But God doesn’t work like that. He has one thing to give us: Christ. And in him are all the things we need. So we cultivate our relationship with Christ (sit with him) and we find that we can walk in a way pleasing to God.

Finally we stand. This is the posture of spiritual warfare. Here we contend, not against “flesh and blood” but against “spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies.” And this again is part of the progression. “Finally…” Paul begins (Ephesians 6:10). If we can’t walk, we can’t fight. If we are constantly tripping over our own feet and collapsing into a puddle of jello we will be of no use in fighting spiritual wickedness in high places.

I believe the last chapter of the book, Stand, requires a lot of maturity. Again as I read it I found myself tempted to think in abstract terms. And I admit I still haven’t found the practical way to think about it that makes it more concrete and relevant. I believe that is my limitation and gives me good reason to think about the way God has spoken in the last part of Ephesians 6.

Nevertheless I believe the book is an excellent meditation on some of the key ideas in Ephesians. It doesn’t cover everything but it covers a lot. I believe if we as Christians read this book and are led into the kind of relationship with God that it encourages, we will all be better off, as would our corner of the Kingdom of God.