2 Chronicles 29:15-16 And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron.
Good King Hezekiah’s response to God included cleansing the temple of all foreign paraphernalia used in worship of demons and false gods. First he had the priests and Levites sanctify themselves according to the Word. Then they cleansed the temple by bringing out all the uncleanness they found in it, and then carrying it out to the brook Kidron. Hezekiah restored pure worship of the Lord, reforming the faith and life of the people of the kingdom.
This is the same thing that we believers in Christ do on a daily and weekly basis. We come into the Divine Service, or begin a daily quiet time with God, by sanctifying ourselves, which means confessing our sins and receiving absolution. Our body is the temple of the Lord, and the heart needs to cleansed by the Blood and sanctified by the Spirit. Then we worship in spirit and in truth all day long, and all week long, as we pray, praise, and give thanks without ceasing.
An important part of the sanctifying process is finding and getting rid of the junk, the sin and doubt, the worry and fear, the false teaching and deception that remains inside the “temple.” We take this sinful and unbelieving clutter to the Cross, and we leave it there for Jesus to bear away. We are sanctified by faith, for Christ is our sanctification. In that holy state we worship.