Sit Walk Stand
Ephesians
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
01-05-20
A Visit with Jim
Right at the beginning of my time at Chenoa Baptist Church, I paid a visit to my friend Jim Probst. Jim is the executive pastor at Eastview Christian Church in Bloomington and a wise friend.
When we meet, it’s not unusual for him to put a piece of paper on the wall and start drawing disciple-making strategies or how to grow leaders. He also has taken many books of his shelf and handed them to me to read.
As I walked into his office, he immediately read my body language. I was tired. As a fellow pastor, he understood my weariness. After listening, encouraging, and praying for me, he pulled a little book off his shelf entitled, “Sit Walk Stand” by a Chinese pastor named Watchman Nee. He asked me to read it and said that it changed the way he looked at ministry and his Christian journey.
Over the next few days, I sat at the feet of pastor Nee and learned that I had really been going about ministry the wrong way. I was doing too much walking and not enough sitting and standing. I began to understand what I must do.
Over the next three weeks, I want to take you through what I learned from this little book. It’s really just a small commentary on the book of Ephesians, a book we will go through together, Lord willing, next January.
I want you to learn to sit, walk, and stand. I believe it will change your life and your spiritual experience in 2020.
Watchman Nee
Watchman Nee was a Chinese pastor, leader, and author who lived from 1903 to 1972. He established churches, lead youth conferences, wrote prolifically, and, after the Communist revolution, spent the last twenty years of his life in prison for his faith. He was not even allowed to attend his wife’s funeral.
When he died, the family was contacted only after he had been cremated. His great niece, went into his jail cell and found a note under his pillow that read:
"Christ is the Son of God who died for the redemption of sinners and resurrected after three days. This is the greatest truth in the universe. I die because of my belief in Christ. Watchman Nee.”
Watchman was a faithful servant of God and his writings are still influencing believers today.
Key Words
The letter to the Ephesians can be dived into two parts - doctrinal (chapters 1-3) and practical (4-6). In the doctrinal section, we learn about our position in Christ (1:1-3:21). The practical section can be divided into two parts - our life in the world (4:1-6:9) and our attitude to the enemy (6:10-24).
Pastor Nee saw three key words in these verses:
Our position in Christ - SIT
Our life in the World - WALK
Our attitude toward the Enemy - STAND
Pastor Nee writes:
“The life of the believer always presents these three aspects - to God, to man, and to the satanic powers. To be useful in God’s hand a man must be properly adjusted in respect to all three: his position, his life, and his warfare.”
Today we will learn to sit. Next week to walk. And then we will learn to take our stand against the Enemy.
Turn in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians.
Prayer.
Seated in Heavenly Places
Let’s begin in chapter one, verse 15. Paul begins his letter with a summary of what he prays for the believers at the church in Ephesus:
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” ( Ephesians 1:18-21)
Paul prays for these believers to know the sure hope they have in Christ. He prays that they would understand their worth and the significance of God’s choosing them. And he prays that the eyes of their hearts would be open to understand the incomparably great power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly realms.
Because of Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation, that power is available to those who believe.
Paul is probably alluding to Psalm 110:1, where David writes:
The Lord says to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” (Psalm 110:1)
To sit at the right hand is to hold a place of privilege, honor, favor, and victory.
This position belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone.
The writer of Hebrews also tells us that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God:
The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. (Hebrews 1:3; Mark 16:19)
In that time, when priests ministered at the Temple they never sat down because their work was never done. There were always more animals to slaughter, more sacrifices to be offered.
But Jesus, the last and greatest sacrificial lamb, went to the cross to pay for our sins.
Our “High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Heb 10:12)
And on the cross, He yelled, “It is finished!” This is actually one word that is an accounting term meaning, “Paid in full!”
He could sit down because His work was done.
This is an amazing truth to wrap your mind around but now we need to look at our position in Christ.
Seated with Him
Paul continues in chapter two with some of the most famous words in the Bible:
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:1-7)
Paul affirms that we were spiritually dead, completely unable to rescue ourselves. We were by nature objects of God’s wrath.
But God made us alive. Why? Because of his great love for us and rich mercy. He didn’t have to do it. We didn’t deserve it and we could never have earned it. But simply because of amazing grace!
But look closely at verse 6. In chapter one, Paul tells us that God’s incredible power raised Jesus and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly realms.
Here in chapter 2, we are told that God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms! Why? To showcase His incomparable riches and kindness.
If we are in Christ, then we have been raised with Christ and seated with Him!
Bryan Chapell writes:
“Here in concise form are the benefits of our union with Christ: with Him we are spiritually alive, with Him we are raised by resurrection power to victory over the guilt and power of sin, and with Him we are enthroned in heavenly realms despite our earthly shell and shame. All the righteousness and glories of the Son of God are ours because we, by being in union with Him, receive all the love of the Father now and eternally.”
The Greek word for raised in the word from which we get “sync.” We synch up our phones and computers in order to transfer music. We have been synched with Christ.
In some incredible way, when Jesus walked out of that tomb 2,000 years ago, Jeff Williams got up with Him.
The fact that we are seated with Him means we have a position of superiority and authority over evil powers. We don’t have to live defeated by this lost and dying world and satan’s schemes. We will look at this more closely in two two weeks when we learn how to stand.
Sit Down
Let’s make our way back to Watchman Nee’s assertion that this entire section can be summed up with the word “sit.”
?
I’m an American male and ADD, squirrel, so I have a really hard time sitting. I want to fix whatever is broken. I want to do something.
He begins:
“Most Christians make the mistake of trying to walk in order to able to sit, but that is a reversal of the true order. Our natural reason says, ‘If we do not walk, how can we ever reach the goal? What can we attain without effort? How can we get anywhere if we do not move?”
He continues:
“ But Christianity is a strange business! If at the outset we try to do anything, we get nothing; if we seek to attain something, we miss everything. For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE. Thus Ephesians opens with the statement that God has ‘blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ and we are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out to try to attain for ourselves.”
This is true in our salvation. Paul continues in chapter 2:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Until you understand that there is nothing you can do to earn God’s love and that even when we didn’t deserve it, He sent His Son to die for us, in our place, for our sins, you can never be saved:
“I can do nothing to save myself; but by his grace God has done everything for me in Christ” is to take the first step in the life of faith.
A couple of years ago, two friends and I drove to Wyoming and hiked nine hours to a beautiful lake. I carried everything on my back. My backpack weighed over 40 pounds.
When I was walking or climbing, the weight was on my shoulders and actually hurt.
Every once in a while, we would take a break and sit. I would take off the backpack and just sit on a rock, enjoying the freedom of not having all that weight on me.
Nee continues:
“In the spiritual realm, to sit down simply means to rest our whole weight - our load, ourselves, our future, everything - upon the Lord. We let Him bear the responsibility and cease to carry it ourselves.”
I understood this principle when it came to salvation. I understood 29 years ago, New Year’s Eve, that I could do nothing but say, “I’m with Him.”
But I had somehow lost my way. I was tired because I was walking way too much in ministry. I was trying to do ministry in my own effort. I needed to learn to sit and learn what it means that I am seated with Jesus in the heaven realms.
Adam Rested
God set it up this way from the beginning. In Genesis, we read that God worked for six days and then rested. But Adam was created on the sixth day, which means his first day was a day of rest.
“God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God’s rest, and then alone can he work.”
Notice that the Scripture doesn’t issue a command to “sit down” but to see ourselves as “seated with Christ.”
Nee writes:
“And the first lesson we must learn is this, that the work is not initially ours at all, but His. It is not that we work for God, but that He works for us. God gives us our position of rest. He brings His Son’s finished work and presents it to us, and then says to us, “Please sit.”
When it comes to salvation, or the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or our being included in the body of Christ,
“We receive everything not by walking but by sitting down, not by doing but by resting in the Lord.”
William Wells writes,
“Unless we come into the presence of the Lord and accept his finished work on our behalf, we haven’t even arrived at the foot of the cross. And unless we cast aside our own self -righteousness, we have not stepped beyond the penalty of the cross and the power of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.”
Past Tense Blessings ?
Understanding this spiritual truth will change your life. If you are “in Christ,” then you have been crucified with Him:
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)
We not only were crucified with Him, Romans says we were buried with Him:
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Rom 6:4)
But wait, there’s more! We were also raised with Him:
“…having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.” (Col 2:12)
Notice the mention of baptism. Baptism is the next step after salvation. It is a word picture of being buried and raised to newness of life.
We have been crucified, buried, raised, and seated with Christ. These are all past tense verbs.
Let’s look at that word SIT again for some applications:
1. Salvation
Some of your deal with forgiving yourself for sins you’ve committed. You might feel like you need to do something to earn your way back into God’s good favor.
When I hear people talk like that, I immediately recognized that they don’t understand their position in Christ.
Forgiveness of sins is not based on anything that we can do, not even what God is going to do for us. It is based on the promises that our ours because what God has already done for us in Christ.
If I put a dollar bill into this book, it is in the book. You can’t see the dollar anymore.
When God looks at us, He sees Christ’s righteousness covering us.
Isaiah affirms this:
“I, yes, I am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remember your sins no more.” ( Isaiah 43:25)
The writer of Hebrews quotes Isaiah and Jeremiah:
“I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” (Hebrews 8:12)
The prophet Micah wrote that God will cast all our sins into the sea (Micah 7:19) and David wrote “as fast as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)
Jerry Bridges writes,
“God not only blots our sins from His record. He also remembers them no more. This expression means he no longer holds them against us.
The blotting out of our transgressions is a legal act. The remembering them no more is a relational act.”
One of Les Steven’s favorite verses is:
“Come now and let us settle the matter…through your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall one like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Some of you live in guilt and shame over your past. When satan reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.
When we sin, and we will, instead of trying to make it up to Him somehow, sit down. Repent and sit and remember that in Christ this promise is one of the sweetest sentences in the English language:
“If you confess your sin, He is faithful and just to forgive your of your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9)
In 2020, lets repent quickly when we do sin and rest in the truth that Jesus did everything for our salvation.
2. Identity
Let me ask you a very important question. If you are “in Christ,” is there anything you can do to make God love you any more than He does does right now? Is there anything that you can do to make God love you less?
No to both! Sit down, rest in the fact that you are extravagantly and unconditionally loved by the God that flung the stars into space.
I have two boys. I don’t love them for what they can do. When I first met them, they could do nothing for themselves. I love them because they’re my children.
Listen. Some of you have an identity crisis. You don’t know who you are.
In Christ, “you are a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17).
Becoming a Christian isn’t like join a club. It’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
In Christ, we are children of God:
“For, in Christ, you are all sons and daughters of God through faith.” (Galatians 3:26)
If you are a child of God and God is the King, and you are a female, what does that make you? A princess! And a prince! We are heirs of God:
“And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:17)
God chose you:
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience…” (Colossians 3:12)
He made you on purpose, for a purpose, with a purpose and has given you gifts that are meant to be used to build up the body of Christ. ?
Some of you are a little uncomfortable right now. Because even though you are a Christian, you still operate out of another identity - maybe it’s screw up or accident or black sheep or failure or addict or stupid. This is straight from the pit of hell.
I have a friend who has been sober now for 25 years. He thinks that AA is a good think accept for how they introduce themselves. He is adamant that he is not an alcoholic. That’s not his identity. His identity is as a child of God who struggled with alcohol. There’s a big difference.
In 2020, lets lean into our identities as blood bought heirs of the most high king!
3. Temptation
Some of you are defeated by temptation. When I talk to people that are struggling with temptation, one of the main words that comes up is “try.” When I hear that word, I know that they don not understand their position in Christ. The key word is not try but trust in what God has already done.
If we are seated with Christ, we have all of His authority and power to st deal with the devils that torment us.
We are going to really focus in on this truth in week three when we learn to stand but we must sit first.
Trials, temptations, and troubles will come, Jesus assured that:
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” ((John 16:33)
John, writing about deceiving spirits, write these encouraging words:
“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one that is in you is greater than the one that is is the world.” (I John 4:4)
Paul sums this up nicely in his letter to the Roman Christians:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;? we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:31-37)
Let’s start 2020 with the assurance that anything that comes our way this year, we can deal with because God will be walking right there with us.
Carried to the Table
This table is a beautiful picture of our being in Christ. We come to the table together to remember what Jesus did for us.
While we prepare to take communion, why don’t you focus on these this slide. In what area(s) do you need to learn to sit?
Are you trying to earn your way into heaven? Are you a Christian, who is trying to earn brownie points with God? Are you struggling with your identity? Are you weighed down by temptations and trials?
Carried to the Table - Leeland Mooring
