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Apostolic Anointing and Ministry (1 of 5)
Fri 6 Jul 2012 AM Mike Connell Ministries Studio
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The apostolic anointing is a commissioning, sending, empowerment to impact lives for the kingdom of God. Jesus first sent 12, then 70, and finally all believers. We're all sent by God, we all have a sphere of influence, and god wants us to be used in this ministry - not only of sharing the gospel, but of healing the sick, and delivering people from evil spirits.
So I want to just honour you and appreciate you've come back continuing on the training. It'll be like what we've done before. There'll be teaching, then there'll be an opportunity to just practice ministering to one another. Now I don't want to scare you all out to cast out demons. I want to just [laughter] - the biggest thing in this area is to just be able to learn how to flow with the Holy Spirit, so we'll outline for you some foundational teaching related to deliverance and healing, and then particularly focus on activations, on learning to flow with the Holy Spirit, because this is the key. So no matter what you learn, listening to the Holy Spirit, working with Him, is foundationally the most important part of this area of ministry.
So in the first session what I want to do is look at apostolic anointing and ministry. The other two seminars we didn't do the session on that. I just left you with the notes on it, but I do want to touch on the area of apostolic anointing and ministry. We're going to go through some brief, just some foundational concepts on this and I want you to just open your heart to let God shift you in your own thinking about ministry and your role in ministry.
So Father in heaven, we just honour You. We thank You You're with us tonight. We thank You it's in Your heart that we be equipped and prepared. We thank You for all that Jesus did for us on the cross, and we are convinced that we can honour You most if we take what was done on the cross for us individually, and we apply it to our lives, then learn how to minister to others and bring them into the freedom that Jesus earned for us. We just thank you for each one that's here tonight, the sacrifice, the commitment, the time that they've set aside for this training, and we ask Lord that You would come, Your anointing would be here, all the teaching would be very clear, and there would be a flow of Your presence to help us in this time that we're here. Lord, we give You all the honour and glory - and everyone said... [Amen.] Amen.
Okay, this first session we're going to look at the area of Apostolic Anointing and Ministry. The first thing I want to look at, is that God is raising up apostolic people. Now let me just describe what we mean by that. Let's have a look at a verse here in Mark, Chapter 3, Verses 14 and 15. It says - read it at Verse 13 - Jesus went up the mountain, and called to Him those He Himself wanted to come, and they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve. Notice what it says - He appointed, He positioned them, or set them in place, for a purpose, so from the beginning of Jesus' ministry, He had a purpose in mind that involved multiplying His ministry, raising up other people. Sometimes we can get the idea that some of this work in ministry is just for a few selected people. This is not true, and I'll show you progressively how Jesus started with the 12, and then expanded His ministry to include you and me.
So it says in Mark 3, He appointed the twelve, one, that they would be with Him. The first and foundation for all ministry is learning how to be in the presence of Jesus, learning how to build intimacy with Him. All ministry flows out of your relationship with Him; secondly, that He might send them out to preach, so the word send is the word Apostallar. It's the word which is hard to translate into English, so they translate it: apostolic. It's almost like they've taken the word, oh it's too hard to do anything with, let's just Anglicise it, and make it apostolic, so when you here the word apostolic you may think of the church down the road as the Apostolic Church, or you may think of apostolic movement, or you look and you think, that must mean the 12 apostles. Often there's a lot of confusion around apostolic. Now the Bible is clear that God has set in the church a number of ministries, and it says: He has set - in 1 Corinthians 12, He's set first apostles, then prophets, then teachers, then working of miracles, and then a range of other gifts.
Every part of the body has a function, and one of the functions that each ministry has, they're anointed for what they're called to do, so when we look at say for example someone who's called to be an evangelist, they're called to connect with God's people, with unsaved people, and draw or bring them to Christ, and then raise up others with an evangelistic gifting. A person who's a teacher is called to teach and establish people, and they have an anointing, a way of thinking, a flow of God's presence to enable them to do that. It involves establishing people. Then the prophetic ministry is to do with connecting people into the realm of the spirit, so a prophet will bring revelation and insight into the spirit world, and will activate people to get closer to the Lord. So in a prophetic ministry, you become very aware of the spirit world, the spiritual realm, but also you become challenged to get your life nearer to God, and to deal with sin issues and so on. So a prophet will then bring people near to God, and address issues which have got spiritual dimensions around them, and raise up other people to flow that way.
An apostle catches what God has got in His heart for the church, so while say an evangelist or a Pastor will be concerned about people and their needs, an apostle will be concerned about what God wants the church to accomplish, so an apostle it says: is first in rank. Why is that? Not because they're more important, but because their thinking is addressing what God wants the church to be. Now everyone has got their own idea what they want the church to be; well I'd like it to be a place where I can come and be loved, and people can be nice to me. That's very nice. That's wonderful. That's pastoral thinking, and it's got a fair bit of self-centredness in it, but God's plan for the church, from the apostolic point of view, has to do with governance, of actually bringing things into kingdom order and alignment, the governance of God over our finances.
So the apostolic ministry is very concerned about the kingdom of God advancing in the world, and so when a church has got apostolic leadership, it will increasingly have spiritual power dimensions, and a movement of the church to engage community, and to advance the gospel into the world. So it says He appointed the twelve that He might send them out, so the apostolic anointing is a commissioning, sending empowerment. In other words God doesn't want us just to sit around, He wants to send us into the community, so for you to have an apostolic anointing over you, is to have the empowerment to go into wherever you are in the community and start to impact it, and impact lives for the kingdom of God - that He might send them out to preach, and have power over sicknesses, and to heal sicknesses, and to cast out demons.
So you notice that the apostolic ministry has with it the gospel of the kingdom, and the power dimension. What we're wanting you to do, is to actually understand you yourself may never be an apostle, but you can be apostolic. You can embrace I have a mission from God. You know I love that movie the Blues Brothers, we're on a mission from God, and they're on a mission from God! [Laughs] It's a very funny movie. Well, you're on a mission from God. The question is whether you know your mission, and whether you embrace the assignment God gave you, and learn how to bring His spirit where you're going. So it says here, notice that word - in the original language an apostle, that name or Apostolos, was used in the Roman empire, so for example, when the Romans sent an ambassador out or a general out, to go out to a new territory and conquer it and bring it under Rome, that was apostolic. We would never think of the Roman army being apostolic, but that's what the use and understanding of the word was.
So in the day in which that word was used, an apostle, or someone who was apostolic, or was sent, was commissioned to go and advance the kingdom of Rome in a new territory, and establish it's government in that area. So the people who were listening to this, when it says send you out, it has in mind they would immediately think of the Roman general going out conquering new territory, establishing the kingdom of Rome, or the laws of Rome and the governance of Rome, so when the Bible talks about you being apostolic or sent, it has in mind this; that in your own life, and in the community where you are, you would see yourself as advancing the kingdom of God, and bringing lives into order. Now obviously, that requires confrontation of the demonic realm, so if a Roman army went out to conquer territory, there was always someone occupied it, and were willing to fight to stop them getting in there.
When they sent out an army, they sent an army because it required power to displace the other armies and to conquer the territory, and then to establish governance in it, and the Romans were remarkable at it. They governed the whole world at the time of Jesus, the whole known world, and had built roads so that they can actually quickly move their troops everywhere. So in the day that Jesus first came, or when He came into this world, the whole area had be apostolic-ally shifted by the Roman army and the Roman governments, so now you've got Roman governance right through from the Middle East right through up into England. So that's the environment within which this happened, and that's what the thinking is; when they hear the word apostolic, they're not thinking of some highly anointed minister. They're thinking of: conquering territory, gaining ground for the kingdom of God.
So if someone's got demons, Jesus said: if I cast out demons, the kingdom is advanced. If someone's got sickness, and you heal the sick, the kingdom has advanced. If someone doesn't know Jesus, and you share with them the gospe,l and they come to Christ, the kingdom is advancing. If someone's got their finances in bondage, and they need to be healed and restored and realigned to get their finances right, the kingdom is advancing - so we need to understand when we're thinking about apostolic anointing in ministry, we're thinking about advancing the kingdom, bringing people, not just to receive Jesus as a saviour, but to move their lives, so they're now living out of kingdom principles. So that's the bigger picture. We're going to get right down to the deliverance or the practical side of it as we go through the next couple of days.
So apostolic people are sent by God on a mission, a unique assignment. It's helpful for you to understand this, is that every believer has an assignment from God, and that assignment is your own life. It also includes the place you live, where you work, your neighbourhood. That's your territory. That's the place God calls You to go. Now I may never go there and win people to Christ or pray for them or get them healed, but you can. The thing is to believe you can, and know what to do. That's what this is about, is helping you to know what to do. So you notice here He took twelve disciples with Him. Now if we have a look in Luke, Chapter 10: and so after these things, after He'd sent out the twelve - Verse 1 - after these things the Lord appointed another 70 also, and He sent them two by two before His face into every city and place He Himself was about to come. So the gospel never advances without someone going, and wherever you go, Jesus wants to come with you into that place, His presence touching lives by your life, and your ministry, and your witness for Him.
So you notice here He's expanded it from twelve being sent or commissioned. Now He's got 70 extra, so now He's got 82 people sent out there, and they have the same commission. They're also anointed, and we know they cast out demons, because they came back very excited about that in Verse 17. They returned with joy, saying: even demons are subject to us in Your name. So first you have the 12, then you have the 70, and then if we look at the end of the gospel of Mark it says, Verse 15, the commission to the church, the great commission, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature - Verse 17 - these signs will follow all who believe - in My name they will cast out demons, speak with new tongues, take up serpents, lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. So you notice Jesus progressed. He started with 12, expanded it to 70, and then expanded it to everyone who believes, so you are commissioned to advance the gospel, and God wants you to understand how to work in deliverance and in healing, even if it's at a simple level.
There's so many people need help, and many of them just don't realise the problems are demonic. They don't want to talk about it, in case you think they're crazy, and we find over and over and over, people who are troubled with demonic spirits, demonic visitations, nightmares, dreams, troubling things in their life, but they don't want to talk about it, in case you laugh at them, or in case you think boy, you're nutty, you're crazy. The reality is, they just need to know this is normal, and to be listened to, and to receive help - and you can give them that help at a level you feel able to, and are led by the spirit to. So the first thing then we see is that apostles are sent out, we're all called to be apostolic.
The Holy Spirit also is apostolic. You notice the Holy Spirit is a sending spirit, so in Luke 24:49, Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you. Wait in Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. So the Holy Spirit comes on you, to send you. Have a think about that. A lot of people think, the Holy Spirit's main purpose in coming in power in my life is so I can speak in tongues and have a happy life, but this is not true. In Acts 1:8 it's very clear; you shall receive power from on high, and shall be witnesses unto Me. In other words, the power of the Holy Ghost is to empower us to live a life, and to witness, so other people are able to experience God. So what you'll find of course is, whenever you seek to advance the kingdom of God, that there is always opposition, so we're going to have a look at just some of the opposition that was encountered in the New Testament.
When we start to talk about opposition, people get a bit wavery and they say ooh, ooh I didn't know about that, and I just want an easy life. I want to be blessed, and just don't bug me, and just leave me alone. Of course as we'll see a little bit later, that's the demon's prayer, leave us alone! You know, leave me alone. Don't bother me - and that is definitely the demon's prayer, apparently in the Bible. So I want us to have a look in a New Testament scripture. The first one we're going to have a look at, is in Luke, Chapter 10. Then we're going to look at where the apostles face some confrontation. Luke, Chapter 10 and Verse 17 again, the 70 returned with joy saying: even the demons are subject to us in Your name. Now you notice they weren't heavy, they weren't serious, they weren't ooh, ooh demons, ooh. They weren't like that. They were WOW! God, what a wicked day, we see people set free! There's great joy. They came back joyful, they were laughing, they were celebrating, see? So joy is always associated with the work of the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of God.
Now this is what Jesus said. He said: I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing, nothing, nothing shall by any means, harm you. I give you authority. That word authority is the word to delegate the legal right to represent Jesus, and speak and act on His behalf. I give you authority - and that authority is to trample on serpents and scorpions. Those are pictures of the devil with his nasty bites and poison, and over all the dunamis, the power, the supernatural dimension of the enemy, and nothing shall in any way harm you. If you've got a Bible underline nothing shall in any way harm you. You may get harassed, you may have some difficulties, you may have a few setbacks, but nothing shall harm you. There it is, Luke, Chapter 10 and Verse 19.
Now let's have a look at the apostles, and what happened to them. There's several examples, I'll just pick up one, in Acts, Chapter 13. We're looking at the apostles, and having a look at some of the difficulties they faced, so apostles always face spiritual opposition of some kind. When we seek to advance the kingdom, there's always challenges. That's part of the deal, so - Verse 4 - they were sent out by the Holy Ghost. There's the word Apostolos. They were commissioned and sent forth by the Holy Spirit and they went to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus. Then they went down to Salamis, and they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and had John as their assistant. That place there that they were, that's the place that they had visited in Salamis, there was the site of a temple to the god Estarta, which is a New Testament version of Jezebel. It's a controlling, witchcraft spirit, so it was the centre of a temple.
When they'd gone through the island of to Paphos, this is where the site of the temple was, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus, son of Jesus. Of course Jesus was a popular name in those days - and he was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man. This man called for Barnabas and Saul, and sought to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer, for that was his name, withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. So let's have an understanding. We have a Roman proconsul. That means he's the ruler over the island, and wherever you get governance of any kind, witchcraft spirits will always seek to attach to them, to try and control that person, so whether it's in the home or the family, whether it's in governance in the community, there'll always be people who have controlling spirits seek to get around that area, to try and gain control.
So the sorcerer was working alongside the Roman proconsul, and trying to influence him so he could get control over the whole island, and notice here it sought to turn him away from the faith, and Saul, who is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, looked intently on him. He's full of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost's inspiring him, and he rebukes him, and the man immediately gets struck blind. So you notice now, this is a power confrontation. Paul is advancing the gospel, and the consequence of that are demons surface, and he has to confront them - and he was not afraid to do so. Whenever we seek to advance the kingdom, whether it's in our own life, or in the lives of others, there is always some forms of resistance. You have to understand that, and learn to recognise it, and learn to stand up and assert the authority God gave you. You have authority over all the power of the enemy, so whatever lies in front of you, in your mission for the Lord, you have authority, God gives you power to deal with it. It's your choice whether you believe that, or whether you're intimidated, it's too big and too hard.
Of course, when we face demonic opposition, or demonic spirits, or demonic resistance in advancing the kingdom, we find it usually comes in the form of accusations, of pressures and difficulties, or of overwhelming accusing spirits, that tell you you're not good enough, and who do you think you are anyway. So if you have those voices going through you're head it'd be lovely, we'd love to pray for you later - time to break your agreement with the voices from hell, and learn to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit. He says: you can do it, I'm with you, you've got what it takes, we're on a great journey together. God is a great encourager. The Holy Spirit is a great encouraging spirit, and when you are sent on a journey, remember, the one who sent you is with you always. So if God has sent you to do something, He said I'm with you, we're going to do this together. I didn't send you there to do it on your own. You can't do it without me, and I'm not going to do it without you, we're on a journey together, so don't be agitated or surprised or frightened if any difficulties come.
So what about Philippi? Well there also was opposition came at Philippi. Let's have a look at it in Acts, Chapter 16. So the point we're trying to make, is that if you seek to advance the kingdom of God, you will experience, at times, seasons of pressure. Now you think oh, well it's alright for you, you're the Pastor. Let me tell you - and if you go and ask Pastor Lyn afterwards, ask my wife Joy, have you faced struggles and difficulties with demons, and pressure from the spirit world, and the answer is: regularly! And does it affect you? Yes! But we always rise above it and win. It's just you've got to watch that you don't come under anything and allow it to dominate your life. Okay, let's move on a little further, so let's have a look what happened in Philippi.
Now they went out and they went to prayer, and a certain young woman who was possessed or controlled with the spirit of divination, a python spirit, met us, and she brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. The girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying: these men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation. But she's got a demon, and this is false flattery. What she's saying is true, but the spirit motivating it was a demonic spirit, trying to gain attention, and gain the credit, for the work of ministry of Paul and Silas. So she did this many days and Paul, greatly annoyed or greatly irritated, or feeling under pressure from the spirit, finally turned around, spoke to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ: come out, and it came out that very hour. So here we have another example of the apostles encountering spiritual resistance as they seek to advance the kingdom.
If you're in the business world, you will face spiritual resistance. If you're in education you'll face spirit resistance. Wherever you seek to advance the kingdom, there will be spiritual resistance. It will come in the form of reactions of people to you, of frustrations, of misunderstandings, communication breakdowns. It will come in the form of accusations, false accusations. There are many ways it comes, and it all has this in common; it's designed to intimidate you, and get you to draw back, and be contained, or overcome. You just have to be able to stand up, and this is why in our last one, we talked about building a strong spirit man, so when pressure comes on you, you've got what it takes to stand up. You're drawing on the Holy Ghost.
So you notice Paul encountered the woman, the woman was hanging around. Now, you couldn't see the spirit, but he could feel the influence. It was making it very hard going. Do you ever notice some church services, how hard it can be? Ever ask the question I wonder why it's hard? This is the house of God, we come to worship God, God's here - why is it so hard? Because there is spiritual pressure and resistance, and you have to overcome it. Where does that come from? It comes because people come under demonic influence through the week, and they come to church, and they're still living under it, and they haven't broken out of it, so we have to stand up. You have to stand up, and believe what God says, and learn how to walk in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. We'll share with you things a bit more about that. So this man, Paul confronted the demon, and overcame it.
Okay then, so the last thing we want to share on this, is that the apostolic anointing is a breakthrough anointing, so that's a wonderful thing to know, it's a breakthrough anointing. Let's have a look in Micah, Chapter 2, Verse 13. Here's what the verse reads. It says: the one who breaks open will come up before them; They will break out, they will pass through the gate, they'll go out by it, and their king will pass before them, with the Lord at their head. Wow, isn't that a fantastic scripture? That word breaker, the word that refers to breaker means literally, the one who bursts out, who breaks through limitations, breaks through obstacles, and the one who is the greatest breaker of all is Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter where He went, He always broke through, always got a freedom, always got release in people's lives.
He said: the one who breaks open will come before them, or the breaker will come before them, and then they will break out. So you notice Jesus Himself, there's nothing the devil sent against Him that He didn't overcome - overcame it all. Pressure, misunderstandings, confusion, opposition, resistance, betrayal, people lying, people trying to catch Him and accuse Him, all that. He overcame everything, and it says: if we align and follow Him, we also will overcome, we'll also break out, and we just need to learn how to do that. So it says: they will pass out through the gate, and go out by it. In other words we will carry authority and dominion in our life, provided our lives are under the headship of Jesus Christ. To be under His headship means, I intentionally align my life to be in agreement with God and His word, so in the whole area of deliverance you'll find, probably the foundational aspect of it is, we have to get people back into alignment with Jesus Christ and His word, and break their agreements with other things that have given legal rights to demons to enter them. Then they can break through, and we'll show you a little bit about what's required to do that.
So the breaker anointing, is an anointing that enables people to break out of spiritual resistance, spiritual limitations, and to get breakthroughs, not only our own life, but in the lives of others. Now of course the first place, if you're going to minister to anyone, is to get a breakthrough in your own life. How many could identify there's things in your life, you feel man, I need to break through? I need to get a breakthrough in that area of my life. It could be an area in the way you think, could be a reaction you have in life, it could be some habit you have in your life. There could be something that is containing you, or restricting you. How many can identify there's something I need to break through? How man? There's a whole heap of people here. That's fantastic.
Why don't we just now, why don't we just stand up and why don't we just lift our hands and our voice and pray in tongues, and let's begin to ask the Lord for a breakthrough, that a breakthrough will start this weekend, and we'll carry on. Shall we do that? Then we'll just take a little break together and come back for second session. Are we ready? Okay, let's just start to pray in tongues. [Prays in tongues] Halleluiah Lord, we lift our voice, we pray for breakthrough, break out, release from limitations, release from hidden bondages, hidden fears. Lord, we ask for Your spirit to move powerfully and mightily upon us over this weekend as we come to worship You and honour You. Come mighty spirit of the Lord, come and flow in us and through us, in Jesus' Mighty name. [Amen.] Amen, amen.
Why don't we do this on the count of three, just give a clap offering to thank the Lord in anticipation of that breakthrough? Amen. One, two, three [applause] thank You Lord, halleluiah. Wonderful Jesus.
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Keywords: Apostolic, freedom, flow with the holy spirit, sent, opposition, break through, anointing, spiritual resistance, spiritual energy, held down, great commission, sphere of influence, metron