Jesus explained that:
“But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; foe the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4: 23, 24
The Father is looking for true worshipers, those who abide in the Secret Place and have a holy desperation for the Lord. Their worship is an expression and affirmation of their love of the Lord. True worship is the natural outflow of abiding in the Secret Place so that all that we do, our serving, our giving, our ministry, and our day-to-day living, are all part of our worship.
How can we come to such a place where we can come to such a place of worship?
“Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”
Hebrews 13: 12, 13
Sanctified means to be set apart for Him, and as believers, we are called to be those who are sanctified and set apart for Him. He longs to reveal to us that through Him, we have become chosen people, or those specially selected and called out by Him. If we understand who we now are in Him, it changes how we walk on this earth. As those holy unto the Lord by the blood, we stand in humility, boldness, confidence, and authority.
This comes because we have been first reconciled to Him or the offense has been removed and our relationship with Him. Secondly, we have been cleansed, washed free from sin, and consecrated to Him. When we talk about cleansing, we deal with the old life and sin, while sanctification addresses the new life and His impact on our lives.
Andrew Murray explained:
Sanctification involves union with God and the peculiar fullness of blessing purchased by the blood.
Before we came to the Cross and were cleaned by the blood, we were sinners, but as believers in Him because of Him and His righteousness, we are now saints. Many struggles with this term because they miss what is being said and think religiously. We have been taught that saints are to be worshipped and that they are extra special people. But read the letters of Paul, who states things such as “to the saints who are in Ephesus.” Not the saints in Heaven, but rather simple believers on the earth.
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the Word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”
Ephesians 5: 25- 27
Murray explained:
Having first cleansed it, He then sanctifies it. Writing to Timothy he says, If a man, therefore, purges himself from these things, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and profitable for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work (2 Timothy 2:21). Sanctification is a blessing which follows after and surpasses cleansing.
The Lord’s heart is that we, as believers, might be sanctified to stand holy, without blemish, and a vessel of honor. Through sanctification, we enter a deeper relationship with the Lord.
Holiness is not a word talked about much these days. But what does it mean? Murray explained:
God’s holiness is often spoken of as it relates to His hatred of and hostility to sin, but this does not explain what holiness actually is. It is merely a negative statement – that God’s holiness cannot bear sin. Holiness is that attribute of God whereby He always is, wills, and does what is supremely good, and He desires what is supremely good in His creatures and gives it to them.
We must remember that He is the Holy One, so holiness defines Him and if we are to draw near to Him, we too must be holy. Further, we are told that as He is, so too are we in this world and are meant to be holy. Murray further explains about holiness:
His holiness is what wills what is good for all; it moved Him to redeem sinners. Both the wrath of God that punishes sin and the love of God that redeems the sinner spring from the same source – His holiness. Holiness is the perfection of God’s nature.
Now read this:
“But as He who called you is holy; you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.”
1 Peter 1: 15, 16
We are to be just like Him, so as His holiness defines Him, His holiness must define us, including what we do and how we do it. To walk holy demands that we surrender wholly to His will and walk in oneness with Him. This holiness comes out of such intimacy and unity with Him, as we saw in Jesus’s life and ministry.
The Holy Spirit comes and sanctifies us as we draw near and learn to surrender.
“That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.”
John 17: 21
Jesus desires that we be found one in Him. Our new lives are to be lost to this world and found in Him, and to experience this truly, we must undergo sanctification. But this must be done willingly as part of our worship. We should earnestly desire Him and be found in Him.
Andrew Murray said:
Sanctification can become ours only when it sends its roots into and takes up its abode in the depths of our personal life – in our will and in our love. God sanctifies no man against his will; therefore, the personal, hearty surrender to God is an indispensable part of this process.
David, in preparing for the building of the Temple, said this:
“Now set your heart and soul to seek the Lord your God…”
1 Chronicles 22: 19
David understood that we had to seek the Lord and His face earnestly. If we are to draw nigh to Him, we must come by the blood, and the degree to which our life is under the blood is the degree we can draw close to Him. We are to know Him and, as a result:
“Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
2 Peter 1: 2- 4
We are to become partakers of the divine nature or one who shares in that divine nature. How? Through the knowledge or intimate fellowship with Him.
“To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3: 19
The heart of the Father is that we come to the place where we are filled with the fullness of God through His love, and His love is perfectly revealed through the blood. The place where His Presence in us has such position and authority in our lives that it sanctifies us. We become more and more like Him and less like the world.
Remember, this sanctification occurs outside the gate, and we are called to go outside and share His reproach. A foundational need in a person is our safety and validation. We want to be loved and accepted, but we must understand that true love and acceptance come from Him and not the world. Remember:
“Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
Ephesians 1: 4
Listen to Andrew Murray:
For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified in the truth (John 17:19). It was because His sufferings and death were a sanctification of Himself that they can become sanctification for us.
Jesus sanctified Himself through His sufferings. We must stop and think about that because Jesus was the Holy One, yet He had to sanctify Himself. He was tempted in all ways as we are and had to walk in absolute holiness.
Murray explained:
Throughout our Lord’s life, beginning with the temptation in the wilderness, He had subjected His will to the will of His Father and had consecrated Himself as a sacrifice to God. But it was chiefly in Gethsemane that He did this. That was the hour and the power of darkness; the temptation to put away the terrible cup of wrath from His lips and to do His own will came with almost irresistible power, but He rejected the temptation. He offered Himself and His will to the will and holiness of God. He sanctified Himself by a perfect oneness of will with that of God.
Sanctification is a quality decision to choose His will over our own, even at great cost. Jesus sweated blood in His surrendering to the will of the Father. It is a sanctification of the truth, and in an hour of such deception, the sanctification of His truth comes at an even greater cost.
“Previously saying, ‘Sacrifice and offering, burnt offering, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them’ (which are offered according to the Law), then He added, ‘Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.’ He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
Hebrew 10: 8- 10
The Greek word for “come” is “heko,” which means to seek intimacy with or come to one. Jesus presented Himself, and in seeking always to be One with the Father, He yielded completely to the will of the Father and walked so that the will of the Father became His. Through surrendering His will and receiving the will of the Father, He was sanctified.
Murray explained:
It was because the offering of His body was His surrender of Himself to do the will of God that we become sanctified by that will. He sanctified Himself for us that we might be sanctified through the truth.
Going back to the Book of Hebrews, we read:
“For by one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.”
Hebrews 10: 14
And add to this:
“For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
Hebrews 2: 11
We are meant to walk in a holy union with Jesus by His Holy Spirit and receive His divine life from Him. This sanctification is a bond that unites us together.
Murray explained:
The Lord Jesus Himself sanctifies His people by His own blood. The man who gives himself to worship and communicate with the Lamb will experience through the Lamb’s blood a sanctification beyond his comprehension. The Lord Jesus will do this for him.
His sanctification enabled us to become one with Him, to have our eyes opened to see and ears opened to hear. We serve a God who always gives more, and through His salvation, He has not just set us free from sin and death but made a way for us to enter a holy intimacy with Him. He desires to have us entirely for Himself.
Murray explained:
He has chosen us, bought us, and set upon us the distinguishing mark of the blood to live only for His service.
The call of sanctification, “Come out from the midst of her,” is a call to leave ll that is of the world, separate from sinners, and cling to Him. See Psalm 1. Murray wonderfully added:
“By His own blood, the Lord Jesus has sanctified me; He has taken complete possession of me for God, and I belong entirely to God.”
Many words from the Song of Solomon come to mind:
“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.”
Song of Solomon 2: 4
And
“My beloved is mine and I am his”
SoS 2: 16
And
“You are all fair, my love, and there is no spot in you.”
SOS 4: 7
Now let me add this from Murray:
In shedding His blood, He sanctified Himself and offered Himself entirely to God and His holiness. This is what makes the blood so holy; it possesses the sanctifying power. In the blood we have a representation of the utter self-surrender of Christ. The blood speaks of the consecration of Jesus to the Father as the opening of the way and supplying the power for victory over sin. The closer we come in contact with the blood and the more we live under the realization of having been sprinkled by the blood, the more we shall hear the voice of the blood, declaring that “Entire surrender to God is the way to full redemption from sin.”
The Father’s heart has always been to dwell among us and be our God. He has desired to demonstrate His love’s wonders, His power’s greatness, and the depth of His mercy to us. Now, through the blood of Jesus, He can come and dwell in us and with us. As we yield to Him and follow Jesus outside the camp, He begins to make us as He pours His divine nature into us. We are now chosen.
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”
1 Peter 2:
