Sit, Walk, Stand - observations and questions from Watchman Nee’s reflections on the Christian life as described in Ephesians

The following is a series of observations and questions that I shared with our staff team at Schweitzer Church on this book.

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Sit, Walk, Stand - by Watchman Nee

Chapter 1 - Sit . . . It’s about our identity in Christ and His life and work

1. “Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE. . . . We are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out and attain it for ourselves.” p.2
1. Nee leans into the work of God in bringing about salvation and our first response to God. How does this challenge your description, depiction of what following Jesus looks like?
2. Nee views ‘despair’ in the Christian life as a good thing (11) - it helps us get to the point of coming to the end of our trying, and finally, letting God do what we can’t. Has this been a part of your experience? How does this inform our thoughts when someone describes themselves as “deconstructing”?
3. "God is so wealthy that his chief delight is to give. His treasure-stores are so full that it is a pain to him when we refuse him an opportunity of lavishing those treasures upon us." (12)
1. How can this change our perspective on giving? How does this inform our understanding on budgets and buildings, etc?

Chapter 2 - Walk . . . it’s about our conduct

1. The natural man has worked out his own standards of right and wrong… Have we realized that for us the starting point is a different one? Christ is for us the Tree of Life? We do not begin from the matter of ethical right and wrong. We do not start from that other tree. We begin from him; and the whole question for us is one of life. . . . Nothing has done greater damage to our Christian testimony that our trying to be right and demanding right of others.” (19-20)
1. What does this do to conversations about “Worldviews”? 
2. How would this speak to the rifts in the culture and what we bring to those rifts?
2. “Often we try to be meek and gentle without knowing what it means to let God work in us the meekness and gentleness of Christ. We try to show love, and finding we have none, we ask the Lord for love. Then we are surprised that he does not give it to us. . . . We have been accustomed to look upon holiness as a virtue, upon humility as a grace, upon love as a gift to be sought from God. But Christ of God is himself everything we shall ever need.” (P24-25)
1. How does Nee connect with practicing the Spiritual Disciplines that JMComer or R.Foster talk about? Is there a contradiction here? If so, are both true?

Chapter 3 - Stand - It’s about the mission of the Church

1. “For no Christian can hope to enter the warfare of the ages without learning to rest in Christ and in what he has done, and then, through the strength of the Holy Spirit within, to follow him in a practical, holy life here on earth. If he is deficient in either of these he will find that all the talk about spiritual warfare remains only talk; he will never know its reality. Satan can afford to ignore him for he does not count for anything.” (40)
1. When a person of some notoriety claims to have come to Christ, in the last 50 years, they have been quickly platformed, given a microphone, and put out as an exhibit for coming to Christ. Time and again, the story begins to unravel. Before long the shining star is far from the stage and far from the faith. What motivates churches and ministries to platform celebrities so quickly and bypass resting in Christ, and learning the way of Jesus? How can we avoid this pitfall?
2. “The Church is called to displace Satan from his present realm and to make Christ Head over all. What are we doing about it.” (41)
1. Previously Née  writes that ‘we see only ‘flesh and blood’ ranged against us . . . A world system of hostile kings and rulers, sinners and evil men. No, says Paul, our wrestling is not against these…” (41) How can this mission of displacing Satan and exalting Christ come about in such a way that we do not find ourselves in a primary conflict with flesh and blood? The culture war is a flesh and blood kind of conflict. How can we engage in the spiritual battle?
3. Née suggests we take up the spiritual battle, in a General sense, by Standing. By ‘holding ground’, not by marching, but by standing. Not by struggling to gain a foothold, but by standing on the ground that Christ has already won. He was offensive, our work is defensive. “We do not fight for victory, we fight from victory.”(42-43)
1. If we fight from victory, then what kind of attitude should we carry? Our disposition? How might we engage our fellow travelers? With anxiety? Fear? Trepidation? Revenge? Or with Humor? Joy? Pleasantness? Encouragement, mercy, and grace? 
4. God’s great self-committal. Née writes about how God has committed himself to his servants to act through them, as they take action in his name. This committal goes beyond just working through, this committal involves having a union with the Lord, that he will commit himself to what we are doing? Née then describes four essential features to which God can fully commit to: 1) a true revelation of the eternal purposes of God, 2) all work must be conceived by God, 3) the work must depend on the power of God, and 4) the end and object of the work must be for God’s glory. (50-58)
1. The great challenge for a church worker, as was the challenge for Elijah (59ff), is to sit with Christ so that we don’t try to ‘drag God into a thing against his will’ (62), but that we walk and stand in the love, power, and presence of Jesus. How do our own expectations and practices encourage or detract from receiving God’s self-committal? How do the expectations and practices of the church community encourage or detract from receiving God’s self-committal? How does our leadership of the church community contribute to or detract from others receiving God’s self-committal?