The Ministerial Authority - Part 2 by Apostle Michael Orokpo: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Recap of Ministerial Authority

Ministerial authority is not given to lord it over believers. It is rooted in three foundational principles: service, not control; love, not manipulation; scripture, not personal opinion. Its five bases are God who instituted the offices, the calling on the minister's life, the witness of the Holy Spirit through signs and wonders, moral character, and fruitfulness in sound doctrine.

The ministry exercises that authority through five channels:

• Equipping and edifying the saints
• Providing spiritual covering
• Exercising discipline
• Demanding accountability
• Blessing the people

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Covering flows through doctrine, intercession, instruction, and prophetic decrees. When God gives prophetic instruction — a fast, a season of prayer, a sacrificial gift — obedience to that instruction positions believers inside a system of preservation. Those who disregard prophetic instruction withdraw from that covering and find themselves exposed to things they cannot account for.

Discipline is not tyranny. It is not flogging, disgracing, or breaking people down. It is a loving correction done with meekness, aimed entirely at restoration. Suspending someone from a responsibility, assigning a demanding task, confronting someone through the word — these are legitimate expressions. Discipline that is not aimed at restoration is flesh.

Accountability is not suspicion. When a minister asks where the money is, or how a project is going, they are fulfilling their charge from Acts 20:28 — to take heed to the flock. Resources given in the house of God are not ordinary money. They are faith. They are worship. They carry the spiritual weight of the one who gave them.

Biblical discipline administered well, along with intercession and prophetic instruction, protects the congregation from casualties that would otherwise be attributed to the devil rather than to the neglect of covering.

The Authority to Bless

Even Balaam — a compromised diviner — knew: I have received a commandment to bless and not to curse. The primary assignment of ministerial authority is blessing. In the New Testament, whenever ministers brought judgment it was the Spirit moving through them, not personal grievance or displaced emotion.

James and John wanted to call fire on the Samaritans when the city refused Jesus passage. Jesus rebuked them: You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. The spirit operating in the New Covenant is largely a spirit of blessing. Ministers who build a career in cursing their congregants — threatening curses on those who offend them while the sick remain sick, the poor remain poor, the sinner unchanged — have stepped entirely out of their jurisdiction.

When blessings are declared — the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you — it is not a cliché ending a service. It is a priestly covering backed by supernatural authority. The reason some believers emerge from crisis without knowing how is because those declarations are standing over their lives.

How Believers Are to Respond

Because ministerial authority is real, God expects a corresponding posture from those under it.

1. Recognise and Honour the Authority

Dishonouring a spiritual authority does not dishonour a man — it dishonours God who placed him. When Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses, both themselves ministers, the anger of God came down and Miriam was struck with leprosy. Moses — operating as a true minister — neither cursed them nor retaliated. He prayed for them. God intervened anyway. Matthew 10:40-41 says he who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet receives a prophet's reward. That reward is not received by someone who treats the minister as a friend, a peer, or a servant. The capacity to minister to a person is directly connected to how that person receives the minister.

2. Submit to Their Leadership

Hebrews 13:17 — Submit yourselves, for they watch over your souls. Submission costs time, energy, resources, and sometimes reputation. When leaders say go and win souls, going — even into uncomfortable territory — is part of receiving the fruit of that covering. Those who were raised properly in God learned early that if a word comes, they run with it as though God himself spoke.

3. Pray for Them

Ephesians 6:19 — Paul asks the church to pray that utterance would be given him. The quality of a minister's preaching is partly a function of the prayer support they receive. When a minister falls, the question worth asking is: was anyone praying for them? The warfare they face is not small. Every day believers draw from their reservoir. Without prayer support, even the most gifted minister will eventually run dry.

4. Give to Them

Galatians 6:6, 1 Corinthians 9:11 — Those taught in the word should share all good things with those who teach. The gospel must be preached free of charge — no conditions on the message. But there is a spirit of honour, a spirit of love, that causes those who are genuinely blessed to reciprocate. The kingdom cannot advance without resources. Giving for kingdom purposes is an act of faith, worship, and partnership.

5. Caution — Test Every Spirit

1 John 4:1 — Test every spirit to see if it is of God. The Berean Christians searched the scriptures daily to verify what Paul taught, and Paul called them noble for it (Acts 17:11). Receiving with readiness and then searching the text is not disrespect — it is nobility. If something taught cannot stand the weight of the word, questions may be raised through the proper channels of authority.

6. Caution — Do Not Idolize

God places ministers to represent him, not to become him in a person's life. When everything — prayer, decisions, travel, marriage — is filtered through the minister's voice and not through God himself, that person has transferred glory from God to flesh. Jeremiah 17:5 — Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm. His heart has departed from the Lord.

The Pharisees made themselves gods over people — controlling, manipulating, lording it over those they led. That is what Jesus was targeting in Matthew 23:9 when he said call no man father — not an abolition of spiritual fatherhood (Galatians 4:19, 2 Timothy 1:2), but a rebuke of idolatry disguised as honour.

Recognise ministers. Respect them. Obey them within the word. Give to them as you are led. But never let them become your God.

The Fruit of Right Relationship

When believers understand how to relate with the anointing, even a minister with limited gifts becomes a channel of great blessing. The woman with the issue of blood only touched the hem of the garment while others were pushing against Jesus in the crowd. The same crowd, the same proximity — entirely different outcomes. The difference was not Jesus. The difference was how each person received him.

For those who build the testimonial of proper alignment — honouring, praying, submitting, giving — the Lord will cause them to rise by the anointing, rise by the blessings of the anointed, and be built up by the teachings of the anointed.

The Lord will cause you to rise by the anointing. The Lord will cause you to rise by the blessings of the anointed. The Lord will cause you to be built up by the teachings of the anointing. So let it be written. So let it be established in Jesus' mighty name.