We may well expect more from Christians than others because it is a fact in the case of those who are truly Christians that they are more than others.

It is not mere talk, it is a fact that the Believer in Christ is born again. He is not only as other men are, made by God, but he has been twice made, newly born, newly created in Christ Jesus. It is no fiction but a matter of truthful experience—we have passed from death unto life! We have received the Spirit of God into our souls which has implanted in us a new nature higher than the nature of other men—as much higher than the common soul of man as the soul of man is above the nature of the beast—for the children of God are partakers of the Divine Nature! God dwells in them, and the Spirit of God inhabits them as a king inhabits his palace.

They are more than other men. They are so not only because of their regeneration, but because of that eternal act of God which set them apart in the Covenant of Grace before the earth was. God has a chosen people. “I have chosen you out of the world,” says Christ. There are some upon whom everlasting love fixed its eyes of Grace before the mountains pierced the clouds or the rivers sought the sea. These are more than others, and are infinitely more indebted to God’s love than others. He has loved them with an everlasting love and because of this He has drawn them to Himself. These men, because chosen of God, have been redeemed as other men were not.

There is a sense in which the Atonement of Christ reaches to all mankind, but undoubtedly Scripture teaches us that there is a people whom Christ has “redeemed from among men.” “He laid down His life for His sheep.” “He loved His Church and gave Himself for it.” There is a particular redemption and in this every truly regenerated child of God is most certainly a partaker. Upon him is the blood mark and he is Christ’s! Of all such it may be said, “You are not your own, you are bought with a price.” They have God’s Nature in them. They have God’s election upon them. They have God’s redemption emancipating them so that they are more than others. They are precious sons of God while others are heirs of wrath—they are in the light while the whole world lies in darkness. They are sheep of His pasture while the rest of the world roams upon the wild mountains of vanity.

Now, if they are more than others, they ought to produce more than others in their lives.

I will not insist upon the reasoning here because I rather appeal to every Believer’s heart than to his head. According as you have received so will love suggest to you to render.

Can any holiness be too precise in return for the infinite love which has been bestowed upon you from before the foundation of the world?

Can any service be too hard to repay the suffering which your Savior bore for your redemption?

Can any self-denial be too severe to prove that the Holy Spirit in you has subdued your flesh and overcome your corruptions?

I say the argument appeals to your love—I will not utter it in legal tones lest you should think you hear the whip of the Law behind me.

But even the Master, Himself, I think, would put it to you thus,

“Inasmuch as I have loved you thus and have redeemed you with such a price, and have begotten you unto Myself by the power of My Spirit, what manner of people ought you to be in all holy conversation?”

What must be expected from those so signally distinguished by the Sovereign Grace of God?

Again, it is certain that true Christians can do more than others. “Can,” says one, “why, they can do nothing.”

True, but through Christ that strengthens them they can do all things! And Christ does strengthen His people. I admit their weakness. I admit, no, I mourn and experimentally lament in my own person their feebleness! But, for all that, they are strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Jesus Christ lends to them His conquering energy, and, as His blood has overcome the enemy, they overcome through the blood of the Lamb. God has given them His Son, and in the power of Jesus they can and must vanquish sin!

Moreover, what is the indwelling Spirit within us?

Is He not Omnipotence itself?

The Holy Spirit who has come upon us is no influence which might be limited in its efficacy—He is a Divine Person who dwells with us and shall be in us.

Who shall set any limit to the power of that man in whom the Holy Spirit, Himself, dwells?

All Believers must never dare to say, “That habit we cannot give up.”

We can and must overturn all the idols in our hearts. We may never say, “That height of devotion I can never reach.”

Brethren, Omnipotence does gird us!

God gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!

We are never to sit down and say, “I must be a sinner up to such-and-such a point. I cannot get beyond that attainment.”

What says the Scripture? “Be you perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect.”

We are to strain after this perfection, and towards this mark of our high calling we are to press.

God who dwells in us is working in us daily to will and to do according to His own good pleasure so that we can do what the dead sinner cannot do. We can do what sinners, without the Spirit, cannot do—and, if we can, we must. Surely, it is required of a man according to what he has, and where much is given much will be required. Let us take care that we quench not the Spirit—that by our unbelief we restrain not His Divine energies—but let us strive, God striving in us, after the highest conceivable standard of holiness and of separation from the world.

O Spirit of God, help us that we may be sanctified by Your Grace—spirit, soul, and body!

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A Call to Holy Living, A sermon delivered on Lord’s Day Morning,

January 14, 1872,

by the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.

“What do you do more than others?” (Matthew 5:47)

Read/Listen to the whole of this most Christ exalting sermon on living in holiness for God in this Christian life, in pdf, in mp3.