Re-defining Fatherhood (restoring Biblical Fatherhood) by Apostle Joshua Selman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

This message is for four categories of people. Everyone gets blessed, but there are four specific groups this message is dedicated to.

1. Fathers who have demonstrated the nobility of fatherhood — in honour of Father's Day, this message is first for those who have bent over backwards to support their families and raise children who are now a blessing to the world. Some of them are nameless, some faceless, but they have contributed to making family, society, and even nations a better place.
2. Mothers who have had to stand in to play the role of fathers — either because the men in their lives transited to glory or because of a dysfunctional family. Rather than leaving the children to happenstance, they decided to take responsibility and fight, if not for themselves, then for their homes and their children.
3. Children who lost their fathers or grew up in dysfunctional homes — either because they lost both parents, particularly their fathers, or because of the sad reality of family dysfunction, and have had to stay and fight through. Like a seed that thrives against gravity until it becomes a giant tree, many have pushed through the tides of the vices that plague unguided people and have made meaning out of their lives.
4. Fathers who have not done a good job as far as fatherhood is concerned — either because of poor mentorship or because of pressures. Some of them may not have the opportunity to redeem and correct what happened in their families, but at least those who are able may, from this teaching, find their way back to fix within their lifetime the mistakes that have been made. And for others, even if they are not able to correct their families, maybe they could correct themselves for the sake of posterity.

The Power of Definition

One of the great deliverances in the ministry of the word is the investment of time, energy and the engaging of your mind to search for the meaning and the definition of words. It is almost impossible to thoroughly understand any concept if your definition is faulty. Most times we use words carelessly or very generically, and because we do not have a unification of definition, we may be saying the same thing, but it means different things to many people.

For example, if you say "God," you will be surprised what God means to several people. For one person, God means self. For another, God means the Almighty. For someone else, God means the originator of any faith practice. So we all say God, but it means several things. Men and women of God who communicate the word must take the pain and labour to help unify the understanding of words and define them properly. Once a definition is gotten properly, you are already on course to understanding the concept.

In preparing notes and studying fatherhood, I had to take a deep breath, honestly, wondering how many people sincerely involved with matters of family were never trained to understand family as God intended. Little wonder family life, translated to community life, translated to national life, seems to be on a decline, because men are not able to rise up to their full prophetic potential.

What Fatherhood Is: Foundational Concepts

Let me establish a few things about the concept of fatherhood before we proceed.

• Fatherhood in its truest definition goes beyond being a male. The average believer's understanding of a father is a male figure who has a child. But that is not an accurate understanding.
• Fatherhood goes beyond being a married man. You can be a married man and yet not be a father. There are many married men who are not fathers.
• Fatherhood goes beyond having biological children. You can be a daddy and yet not a father.
• Fatherhood goes beyond family life.

Only men, only the male gender, can evolve to be called fathers. But all leaders, regardless of gender, can exhibit fatherhood qualities.

The male gender is the scripturally authorised entity committed by God with the responsibility of fatherhood. But fatherhood as a principle goes beyond being a male. Fatherhood is most visibly seen in the family structure, but it is a principle that goes beyond the family institution.

The Meaning of Abba and Pater

The word "father" comes from the Hebrew-Aramaic expression. The Hebrew word is ab, or broadly speaking, Abba. And Abba does not simply mean daddy. Abba means source. Abba means foundation. Abba means sustainer.

We then travel to see the Greek expression of the same word, which is pater (spelled P-A-T-E-R). Pater means protector and nourisher.

Together, Abba and Pater mean: source, foundation, sustainer, provider, and protector.

Fatherhood is first and foremost a creation principle and a leadership quality. It is a principle seen in plants, in animals, and in humans. It is about initiating processes, maintaining those processes, and then replicating or perpetuating those processes beyond oneself.

When you watch a plant, if you are to start a tree that will later become an orchard, the first thing you need is seed and soil. The seed in partnership with the soil plays the role of father. That is what creates the foundation and the initiation process for that tree. The branch that grows out of it is likened to the mother. The fruits are likened to the children.

From the time the fish came out of water, it became impossible for fish to survive out of water. That is its source, and that must be its sustenance. From the time the tree comes out of the soil, no matter how high the tree rises, it must stay connected to the soil for its survival. The moment you cut it from the soil, it withers.

When the winds blow the tree, it is the branches and the leaves that blow, not the root. The roots do not shift. They are what keep the structure intact.

Jesus, in teaching us about fatherhood, said in Matthew 6:9, "When you pray, pray in this manner, our father." The first two words are "our father." Then in Matthew 7:9-11, speaking about fatherhood, he says, "What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

Fatherhood is also a leadership principle. That is how visions are born and perpetuated through the principle of fatherhood. In fact, the highest demonstration of leadership is fatherhood. The ability to begin, to originate, to birth a process, to nurture it, to protect it, to defend it, to build it, to give it structure, and to replicate it, is the highest expression of leadership.

Some of you own companies. Some of you own businesses. Some of you have responsibilities over defined jurisdictions. With respect to your vision, you are Abba. You are Pata. It came from God, but it came through you. You have the responsibility of believing in it, nurturing it, protecting it. Everything a father does to a child is what you do to that vision. If you do it well, what happens to a child will happen to the vision too. A child grows, the vision will grow. A child becomes mature, the vision becomes mature.

Defining a Father in the Context of Family Life

A father is a male who has accepted the role and the responsibility of starting a family, providing for that family, protecting the family, and building the children from that family until they attain maturity.

The word father is classically used in relation to family to mean the biological parent of the children. But it extends to every expression of fatherhood. We have legal fathers, who are not biological fathers but who have played the fatherly role. We have adopted fathers. And we have eldership, meaning that by the advantage of age and experience, a man attains a standing where society accords him that honour, because it is believed that age should have taught him enough experience.

So this redefinition transits fatherhood from a title to a functional office, an office that demands responsibility.

A man can be a daddy in that his seed is responsible for that child. But every role that makes a child feel fathered, that man may not have played. Society is full of such people. The only thing that makes them called fathers in the lives of their children is that they gave birth to them biologically. But every other responsibility did not come from them.

Fatherhood and Society

Let there be, from this moment, a restoration of biblical fatherhood. That means the willingness to accept the responsibility and the role, a divinely given role by God, to start, to nurture, to build, and to raise a great generation.

Psalm 112:1-2 says, "Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth." The journey started from the man. By the time we get to verse two, that whole business has gone beyond the man. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth. Then it goes to the generation. It starts with the man, then his seed, then the generation.

When Satan wants to destroy a generation, he does the reverse of this. If he is not able to fight the man, he fights the seed. If he cannot fight the seed, he will fight the generation directly. But if he has an opportunity, he will fight the man first. When a generation is corrupt and God wants to start a new order, he finds a man. Then it extends to his seed. Then it goes to the generation.

Isaiah 51:1-2 says, "Look unto the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you; for when I called him he was but one, and I blessed him and made him many."

God is always generational. But the way he does it is to call a man, make him a father, and from that man a seed will come out, and then a generation will be born.

Fatherhood can be seen as one of the scriptural assignments of the man with respect to family life. But it can also be seen as a leadership principle that can be practised by all men.

Society is in decadence today because there are many men, maybe sincere men, maybe hardworking men, maybe even determined men; many married men, many men with children; but there are few fathers. Few fathers over families. Few fathers over ministries. Few fathers over businesses.

A CEO is about profit, but a father is about the well-being of the people. You can be a CEO in a company and produce profit at the expense of the health and wellness of the people. The company rises but the people are dying. When you are just a CEO, the vision matters to you more than the people. But a father is concerned about the well-being of the people.

A pastor is concerned about the sermon and about those who serve the vision. But a father is concerned about the well-being of the people, and sometimes even if it means the vision suffering for the people to do well, he knows that the vision is about people.

Five Qualifications of a Father

1. Submission to God the Father

   You are truly not qualified to be called father in the sense of biblical fatherhood until your submission to God the Father is intact, because it is from him that you can draw the resources of wisdom and the resources of favour to train the seed that comes to you.

2. The Covenant of Marriage

   Biblically, with respect to family life, the second qualification to be called father is that you are married. The covenant of marriage gives you the legitimate platform to have children. God is a merciful God, so if you have a child outside of marriage, that does not mean you cannot play the fatherly role. But this is God's ideal.

3. The Privilege of Having Children

   The privilege of bearing your biological or adopted children.

4. The Willingness to Be Responsible

   The willingness to be responsible in nurturing, raising and building those children. Most times men stop at number three. Once they give birth, they believe they have made their contribution to society. But fatherhood demands ongoing investment.

5. The Responsibility of Legacy

   The willingness to create a legacy beyond yourself. If it stops with you, you did not complete the fatherhood. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Assignment of a Father

In summary, the assignment of a father is leadership over his children and his household. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That is the language of fathers. A father says "me and my house," not "me alone."

There are at least seven responsibilities of a true father.

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Apostle Joshua Selman
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1. Foundation and Sustainer

   The first responsibility of the father is as a foundation and a sustainer to his home. He is the one who provides the vision and the pattern for running that family. The family must have a direction. Where are we going? What do we exist for?

   Every organization thrives because it has a vision it can define. You cannot just get old and have the children grow, and your wife cannot define, you cannot define, and the children cannot define what you are doing. It is a recipe for disaster. Because everybody will invent their own idea.

   Let me tell you this: when Pata brings the vision, then you have a basis for measuring rebellion. Because anyone who walks outside of the vision can now be seen as a rebel. Most times men complain that women try to come up with an agenda. Most times it is because there was no agenda. The people did not meet anything when they arrived, and they have to be deployed. They need to feel deployed.

   Gentlemen, go back home and at least by next Sunday, every man should be able to articulate intelligently from scripture a vision that drives your family. For example: "This is a family born by the word of God with an assignment to raise a godly seed that will become mighty, serving the purposes of God, demonstrating victory and walking in love."

   Part of being the foundation and sustainer requires being a provider. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." This scripture shows there are those who are your own, even though they are not of your own house. There is your own house, your biological children. Then there are your own, those who are under your care.

   This is my personal conviction: if a man truly walked with God and got married and is walking by the word of God, it is impossible for that man to lack the capacity to take care of the children God gave him. There must be a window through God's mercy and wisdom to at least be able to take care of the family.

   Provider means more than food. It includes the spiritual support, providing the spiritual meal that builds your family, and the emotional support that is needed. You are source and you are sustainer. There are many men who take care of their children financially but are not investing in their spirituality. Man shall not live by bread alone, but you want your children to live by bread alone. You are giving them bread but you are not giving them the word.

   The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go." But you must be prophetic to know the way he should go. Training a child demands being prophetic, not just being skillful. Manoah asked the angel, "What will be the destiny of this child?" From naming your child to the school he goes to, to the course that he studies, you must deploy the prophetic.

   An attack on your finances is an attack on your fatherhood.

2. Covering

   The second assignment of a father is as a covering, both spiritual and emotional. John 17:12 shows us Jesus saying, "While I was with them, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost." That is fatherhood quality. Providing that covering and accounting for them. "You gave me, I kept, and none is lost."

   Every father has a responsibility of building emotional stability in the children. "My son, if they tell you you are stupid in class, know this and hear this from daddy: you are not stupid." You speak that covering and some naysayer comes to mock the child, and the child does not have to fight, because there is already a garrison.

   A spiritual covering means that provided you are at home, your children will not leave for school without you speaking a blessing over them. When the child returns from school and their performance is very bad, you do not start slicing the children into two groups, showing you are proud of one and tearing down the other. That is the beginning of psychological wreckage. You are a child of the king. You introduce them to Jesus. You can make it again.

   You can detect when evil seems to roam around your life. A man of God provides covering over congregations, including family. But with respect to the family, every man must wear his priestly regalia and take the helm of affairs spiritually. Create the Bible study model that builds people in your home. Create the prayer model. Children are not good listeners, but they are good imitators.

3. Mirror

   The third role: the father acts as a mirror. The identity of the child should come from the revelations that the father brings. Children should discover who they are when they look at their fathers.

   It is one thing to speak, but it is another thing for a child to watch you. The reason why every father should succeed is so that you give your children an opportunity to watch victory and watch dominion. Let them see victory. Let them see dominion.

   As a father, whether you like it or not, your life is a mirror. You define God to the understanding of your children. Through your failures, through your victories, through your compromises, through your integrity, you are selling God. You are showing them what victory looks like, or you are making defeat marketable.

   As you give excuses for failing, they are watching you. As you insist, they are watching you.

   The question to ask: did your child get discouraged when they studied your life? If so, we need to clean up that mirror.

   Once there is somebody following you in your own way, you are father. Once there is somebody looking up to you in your own way, you are father. Once there is somebody drawing inspiration from you in your own way, you are father, male or female. And you must take the responsibility of giving them a picture of what victory looks like, what prosperity looks like, what integrity looks like.

   Children are not good listeners, but they are good imitators. There are children who can beat their chest. When they see problems, they say, "I know my daddy will do something about it." You have become their version of a champion.

   I pray for you by the power of the Holy Spirit for the sake of the kingdom and for the sake of your children, you will not fail. Every wrong image that you have given your children, given your subordinates, given those who are under your care, that is not a reflection of genuine leadership, genuine winning, biblical fatherhood. May that image change now in the name of Jesus Christ.

4. Disciplinarian

   The fourth role: all fathers should be disciplinarians. The formation of character and moral excellence in the children, the definition of scriptural boundaries, is the responsibility of the father.

   A disciplinarian is not a wicked man. A disciplinarian is one who disciplines, one who creates. He is like the potter and the clay. He is responsible for chiselling out flesh. Character formation and moral upbringing are at the core of the fatherhood responsibility.

   Love people with all your heart, but never become too connected to anybody to a point that they outgrow your correction. That is bad leadership. Love people sincerely, let them see that you love them. But never get people to the point where they believe they outgrow your correction. If they outgrow your correction, it means they should not be under your covering.

   The day you cannot correct in righteousness, the day you cannot administer discipline, you have lost your fatherhood.

   One of the ethics of remaining a disciplinarian is to be careful what you collect. There is a way you collect certain gifts, certain things, and you will never have the moral credence to say anything again.

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   Discipline is corrective. Mentorship is educative and transformative. You do not just wait until they fail. You show them the way.

   Never postpone discipline. It is cheaper to deal with it now. Train the child while he is under ten.

   He who the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

   The pressure to be loved by everyone destroys your fatherhood. They will understand later on. Remember some of our parents as harsh as they were while we were growing, we hated them so much. But after we became adults and saw what their discipline saved us from.

   When you vent anger and frustration, that is not discipline, that is immaturity. Discipline is not subjugating people so that your insecurities remain managed. The cure for insecurity is not stopping the shine and the glory of others. It is going to deal with it in the secret place.

   It is better to have a son or daughter, no matter how rebellious, and let it happen in your presence. Let me deal with it. Do not allow lawlessness in your organization. Don't be afraid of being misunderstood. You are raising people. The ability to be controversial yet sincere and visionary is what defines your fatherhood.

5. Builder, Mentor, Coach

   The fifth role: fathers are builders, mentors, and coaches. It is the responsibility of a father to teach your children the laws of life, to help them understand how to win and to be victorious in life. Not just by watching your life, but by educating them. There is only so much schools can do.

   Part of building them is to obtain grace from God to send them to good schools. But it goes beyond school. Fathers teach them what they need to learn. You build skill, you build capacity. Let them learn how to solve problems. Teach them how to save. Teach them how to invest. Teach them how to provide solutions. They are not too young to learn.

   Competence is related to confidence. One of the cures for low self-esteem is to be a master at something.

   Do not be too busy raising others and then leave your family. Many fathers did not focus on building their family. They built churches, they built organizations, they were called great names outside, but in their homes they were not noble men. Not only does charity begin at home, mentorship too begins at home. Training a champion begins at home.

   May your children never run away from you because they are wrong. May your children be so secured in your fatherhood that even when they do not get it right, they do not run to another person, they run to you. There are many people who are only proud of their children when they win. When they do well academically, "you are my boy." When they bring money, "you are my boy." But when they fail, "you are mommy's boy." No. He must become your child when he wins and when he fails.

6. Bridge

   The sixth role: a father is a bridge. All fathers provide leverage. The word leverage comes from the word lever, meaning an advantage. Fathers must give their children and all under them access to connections, access to relationships, access to resources that they would not ordinarily have gotten by themselves.

   Ideally, the time it took a father to be successful should not be the time it takes his son to be successful. If it took you ten or twenty years to understand life and then to become a winner, your assignment is to shorten that time by as much as you are able to.

   In Africa, you know why people attain success late? Because a major part of their life is spent fighting the battles that their parents ran away from. By the time they now get to ground zero, almost half of their life is gone.

   I pray for you, may your life be a bridge that shortens the journey for all those who are coming after you. May they find life, may they find victory, may they find success on time because they are able to climb your shoulder. May you fight certain giants that your children will not need to fight again. May your children not fight your battles. May you not dodge a Goliath that reappears in the destiny of your children in the name of Jesus Christ.

   A good man leaveth an inheritance. May your name become a key in the name of Jesus Christ.

   From age 30, any decision you make that does not factor your wife, your children, or those who come from you is a selfish decision.

   Fatherhood is defined by sacrifice. If a man wears rags for the sake of the destiny of his children, he made a wise bargain.

7. Prophet

   The seventh role: every father must play the role of a prophet, speaking into the child's future and guiding him to find purpose.

   Speaking into the child's future and guiding that child to find purpose is seen consistently in the Bible. God blessed man. Abraham blessed Isaac. Isaac blessed Jacob. Jacob blessed the sons. Jesus breathed upon the disciples, opened their understanding. It is very biblical for parents to bless children and prophesy over them.

   Blessings are so important that after Isaac blessed Jacob thinking it was Esau, Esau returned and said, "Is there not a blessing that is left?" He said, "None." Esau as an adult began to cry. It means there is something in the blessing.

   You may not have money, but you have an anointing. You can speak in the name of Jesus. Even if you have failed as a father, you can have the courage to tell your son, "I did not go to school. I did not have the privilege. We do not have our own house. But my son, I bless you by the privilege of fatherhood. I speak over your life."

   Every man here is a prophet. Every leader is a prophet. You must obtain the grace to prophesy.

   I receive the grace and the responsibility to speak prophetically over my children until their destiny is manifest.

The Legacy a Father Must Leave

Your fatherhood is not complete until legacy is established through your life. Legacy means continuity, that you perpetuate everything beyond yourself. If it stops with you, you did not complete the fatherhood.

There are five things that every father must transfer to his children, to his subordinates, to everyone who looks up to him.

1. Your spiritual convictions. Your love for God is transferable to your child. The dynamics of being prayerful, loving the Lord, the principles of your consecration, let it not stop with you. If the only thing you give your children is money, you did not do much.
2. Your belief system. Your philosophies, what mindset made you a champion, what mindset was responsible for the awards in your house, these are transferable. Your value system, your ideas about God, about life, about success, about wealth, about effective living, about destiny.
3. Your relationships. The leverage of connections, strategic connections. You must educate your children on what you did to preserve the relationships that are now profiting you, so they do not destroy it. Teach them the law of honour. Teach them respect. Don't just introduce them to men, teach them. Don't transfer a relationship to a child that would destroy it in one year.
4. Physical assets. The houses, whatever you consider to be an asset, real estate, investments, shares.
5. Transfer the blessing. Transfer the anointing that backed you up. It was not all about brain work. It was not just about principles. Behind the enviable exploits, there is an anointing. Do not rob your children from tasting of that glory. Bless them. Speak over their life. Let the grace for favour rest on them.

The next time you say "I am a father," or the next time somebody calls you daddy, or calls you father, or calls you an exceptional leader, please have it at the back of your mind that fatherhood is beyond a title. It is a call to responsibility.

A Note on "Call No Man Father"

There is a controversial scripture that many have misunderstood, where Jesus said, "Call no man father." When Jesus says to call no man father, the word "father" there means your source as touching God. It does not mean earthly father. He was speaking within the context of placing a man in the position of God.

In as much as Abba-Pata means "source," for us who are enlightened, we know that there is only one source of all life, the God of heaven. But that even though you are called a source, in truth you are a channel. It started from him. So God is the source of all life, of all things, and then we receive of his fullness, and within our context we become the Abba, the source, but not as though we are the original source of wisdom and grace.

Fatherhood has been abused, especially spiritual fatherhood. There are people who go through all kinds of things because they must call people father. The idea is not the mention of "father" or "daddy." The idea is to understand that there is such a principle as fatherhood. When the Bible says call no man father, what he means is, do not put anyone in the place of God. "For one is your father which is in heaven."

When God shows up, Joshua Selman stops being father. When he shows up, your biological father ceases to be father, because he is the Father of spirits. That is why we take our golden crowns and all of us together, both father and son, both boss and employer and employee, we all bow to the Father.

There is a fine line between honour, respect, and worship. When a man demands honour or respect, that is within the scope of earthly fatherhood. But when a man demands worship, at that point, it has entered the state of witchcraft and perverted fatherhood.

Closing Word of Encouragement

To the mothers who have had to bridge the defect of the absence of true and noble fathers, we salute you for the courage to cry and yet keep praying, to work yourselves and work multiple jobs for the sake of your children.

To the children who lost out on the privilege of effective, word-based fatherhood, who never knew the love of a father, we thank you and salute you for still standing in spite of the odds.

I want to speak a word of hope to any father who is saying, "I failed." The thing I know about God is that he is able to restore. Maybe not your home the way it was, but he can give you peace. Where you are able to, reconcile with your children. By reconcile, I do not necessarily mean come together, I just mean make peace. Swallow your pride and do it.

I forgot to tell you that men also cry. I forgot to tell you that men also fail. I forgot to tell you that sometimes there are godlike expectations on men, and sometimes the world is too harsh on men. Sometimes they do not give enough time for men to evolve.

But my discussion is a challenge to us as God put it in my heart, that God will help us to be noble men, as leaders, as noble fathers, as biological fathers, spiritual fathers, sociological fathers, coverings over our families. That if it depends on us, we will not fail.

God is only father to you if you are born again. If you are not born again, he is creator but not father. The fatherhood of God only covers his family. He is creator of all, but he is only father to his children.