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.