God Is a Good Father, Even If Your Dad Isn’t

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If you’ve felt the lack of a caring earthly father, Stephen Kendrick has a great reminder. 

Stephen Kendrick: God is a father to the fatherless, and through Jesus, you can receive everything that you long for in life.

Nancy: Welcome to the Revive Our Hearts podcast. It’s June 15, 2022, and I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

Today we’ll get our eyes on the only One who’s a perfect father, our heavenly Father. Glad you’re listening!

Father’s Day is coming up this weekend, and the very thought of dads means different things to different people. We’ve all had a father . . . or have a father. You may not have ever known your dad, or you may have known your dad well. 

You may have a healthy relationship with your dad, or the thought of a dad may spark pain in your heart. Maybe you’re married to a man who’s the father of your kids, or you’ve got grown sons who are fathers, or maybe you’re a father yourself. 

Of course, the primary audience for Revive Our Hearts is women, but we know that men listen in sometimes as well. So regardless of which of these categories you’re in, I believe today’s program will be a sweet encouragement to you.

Our guest today, Stephen Kendrick, is no stranger to Revive Our Hearts. For over a decade, he and his brother Alex have made films with God-honoring messages, movies like Facing the Giants, Courageous, Fireproof, and Overcomer, to name a few. 

More recently they’ve produced a documentary called Show Me the Father. Robert and I watched it together some time ago and really enjoyed it. It’s all about the importance of fatherhood and about how we find in Scripture the ultimate model of true fatherhood. So if you haven’t seen this film, be sure to look it up. It’s really worth watching.

Not long ago, Dannah Gresh sat down with Stephen to talk about fathers and the need for good dads in every generation. She started with a quote from this film, Show Me the Father.

Dannah Gresh: Stephen Kendrick, it has been said: “Everyone has a fatherhood story.” Have you heard that before? 

Stephen: I think I have! I saw a documentary that talked about that!

Dannah: I think I saw that documentary, too. I’m just wondering, what’s your father story?

Stephen: Wow! I have two, like hopefully most people. I have an earthly father who was a broken person. In my situation he found Jesus and the gospel transformed his life! It was through his praying momma that he heard the gospel. He and his earthly, broken, seven-foot-tall, alcoholic father ended up coming to Christ later.

My dad really changed the family tree because my grandmother stood in the gap. Let me just say, at my house on my wall I have this giant family tree with my family in the middle—my parents’ wedding photo to the right, with my dad’s family and my mom’s family below that. 

On the other side of the wall is my wife’s parents’ wedding photo and taking back both her parents’ heritage. But the unique thing about that family tree is my praying grandmother. Though her husband was unfaithful, though he was drinking rather than providing, though he was causing so much pain in the home, her relationship with Jesus and her dependence upon the Lord was really the link that God used to keep our family together. And because of that, my father came to Christ, and we grew up in a Christian home and Kendrick Brothers movies are in eighty countries around the world!

So great is her reward in heaven. I am grateful for her and how the Lord used her. But back to the father story. I have an earthly father who even today at almost eighty years old (this year) from a hospital bed, he prays for us, he encourages us, he cheers us on.

He can not hold a fork or a pen, but he can open his mouth in prayer. He can text using his finger on his iPad. He sends out daily texts of how he’s praying and how he’s asking God to work in the lives of his three sons and their wives and his nineteen grandchildren.

I also have an earthly father who led me to my heavenly Father—giving my life to Christ and then discovering the forever joys of learning more and more about His love, His grace, His mercy, and who He is. Earthly fatherhood really is not to replace God, but to introduce us to the Fatherhood of God.

Dannah: Well, that’s a big thought because if that’s true (and I believe it is), for those of us who had fathers like an alcoholic father or an absent father, a workaholic father, a sex-addicted father a father who was unfaithful, a father who just was never there . . . Maybe you don’t even know the name of your father. How does that impact our understanding of who God is as a Father?

Stephen: Well, it says in Ephesians 3 that the role of father was created out of the Fatherhood of God. And so, He has placed into the lives of every human being, by design, a living, tangible, touchable representation of who He is.

Now that, obviously, is broken through sin and through abandonment, through divorce, through dads just not knowing how to lead and love their families. We see the tragedy of fatherlessness around the world. 

You see God’s heart throughout Scripture for the widow, for the orphan when the man is gone—whether intentionally or by war, taken out of the home. God says that pure religion is to visit and take care of the fatherless and the widows “in their affliction” (James 1:27).

They are hurting, they’re struggling, they’re holding it together as best they can, but all of those roles that he should be fulfilling, he’s not when he’s gone. So, the Bible communicates repeatedly that earthly fatherhood is broken, and there’s a lot of pain there. 

But God also says He can be the Father to the fatherless through Jesus, and that is the grace of God and the redemption that comes in the midst of all the darkness around us.

Dannah: What a promise! Let’s talk about that darkness for a second. Maybe there’s a dad listening who is at that crossroads of deciding what kind of a father he’ll be, or maybe he needs to push the reset button. What is the outcome of fatherlessness? How does it show up in a kid’s life? 

Stephen: Well, 42 percent of children today grow up in America without a father in the home, and almost 70 percent of kids are not emotionally connected to their dads even if he is in the home. So that is tragic! 

If you look at the statistics, the one common denominator of people who are in prison right now is fatherlessness. It’s not race, it’s not socio-economic levels, it is not education, it’s fatherlessness. Basically, they grew up in a home where the bus driver jumped out of the bus. Oftentimes their family, their emotions, their understanding of even their own identity can end up in a ditch.

Thank God for moms who, a lot of times, will reach over and grab the steering wheel and try to hold it together. But a mom was never intended to play both roles of a mom and a dad. She’s got a full-time role even as it is, as a mom.

But you will see that the highest percentage of those who drop out of school: fatherlessness. The highest percentage of those that are on drugs: fatherlessness. The prostitution/pornography industry is built upon fatherlessness. Sex trafficking: built upon fatherlessness.

This is a major, major issue. This one key leadership position that should be representing the provision, the protection, the wisdom, the love of God, it is massive when he [the father] is not there.

Dannah: Yes. In my research on sexual health, sexual theology for teenagers, one of the trends we see is, girls who don’t have an intact intimate relationship with their dad are more likely to be sexually active. And, generally, those sexual encounters are with young men who are three to five years older than they are.

They’re not looking for a boyfriend, they’re looking for something to fill that daddy-shaped hole in their heart.

Stephen: Absolutely.

Dannah: That becomes tragic, and it’s hurt upon hurt. Fatherlessness creates other kinds of wounds.

Stephen: And you see in Scripture, if you go back to Exodus 20 when God gives the Israelites the ten commandments, He points out that the iniquity of fathers is passed down through the third and the fourth generation.

You see it in Abraham. Abraham lied, Isaac lied, you see Jacob lying to his father, you see Jacob being lied to. You see this continuing of a sowing and reaping is happening in generations. You’ll see alcohol passed down through generations.

You’ll see abandonment, you’ll see divorce, you’ll see drug abuse. Now, the gospel can set us free from that. The Lord can redeem and rescue out of those situations, but it is a harsh reality that there is a spiritual sowing and reaping that happens in the lives of fathers and their kids.

Dannah: I’m thinking about your grandfather and your dad right now. That’s a hopeful story. It sounds almost too picture perfect. You describe your dad as this man who’s leaving a spiritual legacy, who taught you how to be a father, who introduced you to the Father heart of God. But he was raised by an alcoholic. Was it just miraculous, he knew how to be a dad even though he wasn’t raised by one, or was there a progression in his life, too?

Stephen: Well, my dad suffered a lot and continues to suffer. He grew up with major insecurity issues, fears, antisocial issues, depression. Even as a dad, there were seasons of depression that he went through. 

I believe so much of that was tied to his dad not really meeting those needs and representing the Father well, especially in those formative years. Our father has multiple sclerosis; he is bedridden now and deals with those things every day.

At the same time, we see how the gospel does transform. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Cor. 5:17) You see how the Word of God began to teach my dad as he was studying the Scriptures on, how should a dad treat his kids, what are his roles and responsibilities?

He was hanging around godly men, watching them. He was reading good books. I remember my dad was devouring the books by James Dobson as they were coming out in the seventies, on how to love and lead and disciple your children.

Actually, Focus on the Family was built upon this original series that Dr. Dobson was doing, traveling around to churches and speaking on the importance of marriage, family, and fatherhood. 

Dannah: So would you say, then, that your father maybe didn’t learn how to be a father from his dad, even though his dad did come to the Lord eventually, that he learned that from other godly men?

Stephen: Correct, yes. It’s interesting, if you look at the books of 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul points out that it wasn’t Timothy’s earthly father, it was his mother and grandmother that were laying the spiritual foundations for him. 

Then God sends Paul into Timothy’s life to win him to Christ, and he repeatedly calls him, “my son” (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2). He saw him as this spiritual son, and he is investing in him. He is challenging, encouraging him in both of those books, that he was that father in Timothy’s life.

It is so important that men, godly men, take it upon themselves to not just father their own children, but that they say, “Lord, would You use me to reach out to the fatherless in my community, in my circles, in my family?” and be that father figure that they so desperately need in their lives.

Dannah: The hopeful part of this story is that your father did leave a legacy. What would you say is the greatest impact, or how did that show up in the sweetest way?

Stephen: My dad read the book The Blessing, by John Trent and Gary Smalley and saw that in the Jewish community it is so important for a father to not just train and model for his children, but to bless them, to verbally speak love and life and truth and identity into their lives.

You see that happen at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Even before he healed anyone, preached a sermon, or walked on water, Jesus is hearing the Father say to Him, “You are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). 

There was this blessing from the Father, even as God blessed Abraham and told him to bless Isaac, and it was passed down through the generations. He told the dads, “Bless your children, and when you bless them, I will bless them.”

Then you will see in the New Testament that God does that for us, His spiritual children. When we give our lives to Christ, Scripture says in Ephesians 1:13 that when we believe the gospel, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Then [Ephesians 1:3] says that we are then blessed with every blessing from the Father.

He is speaking success, He is speaking identity over our lives. He’s affirming us as His beloved children. We don’t deserve that. It is all by His grace that He does that for His children, but the Bible communicates that we get the same blessing Jesus got!

We are joint heirs with Christ (see Rom. 8:17). We get an equal amount of blessing and provision that Jesus got, and that’s just mind blowing, because we feel so unworthy. We know that Jesus is perfect, but that also reveals a little bit more of the DNA of God—that His love is not based upon performance or our deserving it. His love just flows out of who He is.

 

Dannah: I have tears in my eyes, because the words of a father are so powerful! I saw Show Me the Father, and I saw the video clips of you being blessed by your father at your wedding, and your brothers being blessed, and I was tearing up.

I looked at my husband and I said, “Are you crying?” 

He said, “What do you think?” 

It’s just so emotional! It can be a very simple thing, and yet be very powerful! In the year 2000, my father called us together as a family, and wrote a document that blessed us, and read it over us at midnight on the year 2000.

He read it over not just us in that room, but our children that weren’t born yet and our grandchildren that weren’t born yet. It was simple but so profound! I can’t tell you the number of times those words ring in my heart and give me courage!

Stephen: Well, if you think about all the places we could go to find our identity: what does the culture say about us? What does your best friend in high school say about you? What do your boyfriends, girlfriends—growing up—say about you?

But more than anything, kids look to their parents, and oftentimes their dads, and say, “Dad, am I a Republican or a Democrat? Am I a Baptist or a Methodist? Am I loved or hated? Am I beautiful or ugly? Who am I?” And oftentimes dads answer that question negatively by not saying anything.

The kids are sometimes indirectly saying, “Look at what I did, Dad!” or “Look at my report card,” or “Look at what I’ve accomplished.” And the dad’s like, “Huh?” He does not communicate.

But what they’re saying is, “Please tell me who I am. Please love me in this situation, and let me know, do I have what it takes?” Those are part of the elements of a true blessing. God is saying, “I love you,” just as He said to Jesus. “You are my beloved child in Whom I am well pleased.”

You see those things embedded in Ephesians 1. It says we are “accepted in the beloved” (v. 6), it says that we are chosen and adopted (vv. 4–5), it says that we have a home in heaven waiting for us (vv. 4, 11), it says that by His grace poured out upon us, the lavish riches of His grace being poured out upon us (see Titus 3:6).

In 1 John 3:1, He says, “Behold, what manner of love the Father [has given to] us, that we should be called the sons [and daughters] of God.” And so, there is this awakening when we believe it. Paul, in Ephesians 1, is praying for believers. 

They know Christ, they have these blessings, they have a home in heaven waiting for them, they have a new identity in Christ, but they don’t know it! And because of that, they’re not living out according to their identity. They’re living, oftentimes, according to who they used to be apart from Christ.

And so Paul in Ephesians 1:16–18 says, “I’m praying for you, that the eyes of your hearts will be opened for you to discover this rich inheritance that you have in Him, this Father that you have, this power that you have.” (paraphrased)

In Ephesians 3:18 he says, “I’m praying for you again [that the Holy Spirit would open the eyes of your heart] that you would know the width, the length, the depth, the height of His love for you.” (paraphrased) 

If God were to sit in front of you right now and were to look at you in the eyes, you would be overwhelmed by His love, His mercy, His grace, His holiness, who He is. If He said to you, “I love you, and I have provided for you everything you need to do My will in this life. I am always going to be with you. I am never going to abandon you. I’m going to use everything you have been through and everything you’re going through for good and for My glory. You can trust me completely! And wherever you go in life, I can provide anything in any amount to you in that situation, and I have empowered you by my Holy Spirit. Now, go out and do my will and love others and shine as my beloved children!”

If that were to happen and we really were to drink that in, it would transform everything in our lives. We would turn around and love others—our spouse, our kids—more freely. We would love our enemies. We would live with confidence and boldness.

That’s basically what Paul is praying for in Ephesians 1 and 3, that believers would awaken to who they are in Christ, that the Father’s love would be made known to them.

Dannah: Yes, so I’m hearing you say, “Fathers matter, and part of why they matter is because it helps us understand who God is, it helps us see His heart.” Okay, but I’m thinking of the woman who’s listening right now and saying, “But I didn’t get my daddy’s blessing! In fact, I didn’t get a lot of good from my dad.” What would you say to her?

Stephen: I would say, “Your father has misrepresented the heavenly Father. You can know that throughout the generations, God is a father to the fatherless, and through Jesus you can receive everything that you long for in life.”

Jesus kept repeating in the gospels, “If you’ve seen Me, you have seen the Father.” (see John 14:9) John 15:9 says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” He is communicating, “I have shown you the works of the Father.” He said, “I have spoken the words of the Father. I am here to do the will of the Father.”

The entire time, Jesus basically is saying, “I have stepped in, and I’m providing the real deal, not the fake commercial.” It is through the gospel that we can know the Father. And so, you can forgive your earthly father, pull that knife out, heal. 

Dannah: So important! Yes!

Stephen: Move on with freedom and joy through Jesus, and God can provide for you everything that your earthly father did not. Even in my own life, even though I had a loving earthly father, basically it helped me to understand and to believe these Scriptures and to rely upon them because God, actually, is the source of my identity and my joy and my strength now. It’s not my earthly dad.

Dannah: Yes, such a hopeful thought! What about the mom, the wife of a husband, who’s not seeing that father modeling of the Father heart of God. What advice would you have for her?

Stephen: I would say go to Ephesians 1, 2, and 3 and pray the two prayers that Paul prayed. Pray them for yourself, that God would open your eyes. Pray them for your children, that the Lord would open their eyes to who they are. Scripture says in Ephesians 2 before we give our lives to Christ, who we are is not good.

Yes, we’re made in the image of God, but we are dead in our sins. We are enslaved to lust and greed and pride and selfishness. We are without hope in this world, is what it says. But (and I love this part of that passage in Ephesians 2:4) God, Who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He has loved us, has made us alive together with Christ. And that’s where it says, “For by grace are [you] saved through faith; and that not of yourselves” (v. 8). And that He has completely transformed us, and can transform you if you don’t have a relationship with Christ.

It’s amazing that churches around the world across racial and denominational lines, if you really get down to it, they must preach the simple gospel message of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection,because it is the doorway into a relationship with the Father.

And people have heard the verse John 14:6 before, they may not have thought about it. Where Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: [no one comes to] the Father, but [through] me.” But He did come, He did die, He did rise again from the grave. And He says, “Now, I don’t just go to my Father, but I can go to your Father.” 

I love 1 Timothy 2:5, it says, “There is [only] one God, and there is one mediator between [us and God], the man Christ Jesus.” He is the bridge for us to have a relationship with the Father. I was talking to a dad last night in church. It was the first time ever walking into our church. He’s from another country, kind of broken English. He basically was communicating, “I’m interested in being born again. What does this mean?” And for me to walk through again the simple gospel message, it is so beautiful! 

What I tell people is that through my daughter’s adoption, we saw her go from being an unwanted burden in a Communist country to being a beloved blessing in a Christian home with equal access to my lap, my heart, our resources . . . the same inheritance as her siblings. Her identity, her name, everything changes because of that adoption.

The Bible communicates that because of our spiritual adoption, everything changes. We don’t deserve it, we don’t earn it, we don’t perform to get it. God is a rich Father; He’s rich in love, rich in mercy, rich in grace. Through that adoption He gives us, and can give us, more than we can ask or imagine throughout our lives.

He gives us the provision in the good times, and He gives us the strength and the comfort during the bad times.

Dannah: Mmm, so good! Stephen, did your grandmother live to see any of your movies or the things the Lord has done through your ministry?

Stephen: She saw Flywheel and Facing the Giants, the early stuff. She hasn’t seen War Room and Overcomer and Show Me the Father, but she was filled with joy to the end of her days. She died at ninety-one or ninety-two years of age and loved the Lord and was praying for us.

If you hear about all the pain she went through in those early years, she forgave her husband, she found her hope in Christ, and let God be her source of love and identity and strength. And she finished well! I’m very grateful for her and how God used her in our lives.

Dannah: What a hopeful thought!

Nancy: That’s Dannah Gresh talking with film producer Stephen Kendrick. Stephen will be right back to close us in prayer. But first, I think it’s worth stopping to ask, how would you describe your relationship with your dad, if he’s still alive? Or, how was your relationship with your dad when he was alive?

On scale of 1–10, maybe, where 10 is, “Great! I love my dad, and he loves me!” Maybe 5 is, “There is some tension in my relationship with my dad.” And 1 is, “I have no relationship, we’re not even on speaking terms,” or “I don’t even know who my dad is.” Where would you rate your relationship with your dad?

Regardless of whether you’re at a 1 or a 10, or probably, like most people, somewhere in-between, you’ll find great encouragement from the Kendrick brothers’ documentary film called Show Me the Father. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen it, and I can tell you it is well done.

In fact, there’s a beautiful surprise ending, which of course I’m not going to give away. There’s more information on how you can view the movie Show Me the Father linked in the transcript of today’s program. That transcript is available at ReviveOurHearts.com. 

And while you’re there, would you consider making a donation in support of Revive Our Hearts? When you do, we want to say thank you by sending you a little booklet I’ve written called Facing Our Fears. It’s all about how we can trust in the faithfulness of God, even when the thought of surrendering to God and His will might be a little scary to us. 

Be sure to ask about that booklet, Facing Our Fears, when you contact us to make a donation at ReviveOurHearts.com, or you can call us at 1-800-569-5959. 

Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, Stephen Kendrick will be back to help wives know how to better encourage their husbands. I know I have a lot to learn about how to better encourage my sweet husband. And if you’re a wife, I suspect you could use some tips, too. Be sure and join us again tomorrow. Dannah?

Dannah: I wonder if you’d end our time together, maybe praying specifically for those women who are listening who have a daddy wound, that they need to forgive their earthly father so that they can truly see and understand their heavenly Father.

Stephen: Yes. 

Father, I thank You that You treat us not according to our sins, not according to what we deserve, but that You treat us based upon who You are, not who we are. Your Word says that You are abounding in lovingkindness and slow to anger, that Your mercies are new every morning, that You have a tender heart, and we can call you Abba Father. We can call you Daddy. You are a father to fatherless. Lord, I lift up every person who is listening to this broadcast, this message.

I pray for those who have a deep wound from their earthly fathers, whether through abuse or abandonment, whether through betrayal, lies, hypocrisy, whatever the reason, Lord, if there is a knife that is still in the heart. Lord, I thank You that You forgive us through Jesus of 100 percent of our sins. Then You, out of Your love for us and desire for us to heal, You ask us to then forgive every person who sins against us. 

Lord, I know that forgiveness sometimes feels like it’s wrong, because this person doesn’t deserve our forgiveness and the hurt is so deep. But, Lord, we don’t heal until we forgive. Knowing what is best, knowing that You are the judge of everyone and You are the judge of our earthly fathers . . . We don’t have to sit on the judgment seat. We don’t have to continue to live angry and burdened by the sins of our fathers. You ask us to let You bear that, to let Christ’s death on the cross cover that, to let Your grace abound in our lives. 

So, Lord, I pray that You would give grace and strength to everyone who is listening, to be able to say, “I have borne this pain long enough! I’ve shed enough tears, long enough, over the sins of my father. And today, I am pulling the knife out, and I am forgiving my dad and releasing him of this debt he owes me. I’m turning this over to God. I’m turning it over to Jesus. I’m asking You, Father, to help me fully forgive from my heart so that I can heal, so that I can move on, so that I can live a life of love rather than a life of bitterness, so that I can have a tender heart again rather than a hard heart.” 

I pray Father that You would set people free! That these ladies who have had earthly dads who hurt them so deeply, that today they would turn all of that over to You and release their dads, and that You would give them the grace to be able to heal and move on in freedom and in joy. 

Lord, we thank You that through the strength of Christ we can do what ordinarily we cannot do on our own. So we ask, Lord, for extra grace to be able to do this. So we praise You, and we thank You for the liberty and the joy that awaits! In Jesus’ name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to honor your father, and experience freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

Scripture is taken from the KJV.
 

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