The Intimacy Of God's Love
21:01 Share

It's time to take the quiz. Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week. Take the quiz every weekday at thequiz.fox and then listen to the quiz podcast to find out how you did. Play, share, and of course, listen to the quiz at thequiz.fox.

It's Live in the Bream with the host of Fox News Sunday, Shannon Bream. He is a preacher. He's an author. He's a speaker. And he's got a brand new book out called Seven Lies That Will Ruin Your Life. What my journey from porn star to preacher taught me about the truth that sets us free. Joshua Broom, welcome to Live in the Bream. So glad to be here.

So listen, your story is unique. There are so many twists and turns. You were a young man who was really searching in many ways for acceptance, for love. You went off to L.A. to become a star, and maybe it didn't go the way that you had thought it originally would. You definitely spent a few years in what you later called kind of a wilderness and difficult time. Yeah, absolutely. What was unique about my story that...

many people struggle with fatherlessness, unfortunately in, in this country. But, um, what was unique about me growing up was that my father was in close enough proximity to, um, you know, be someone that I saw and I saw him, um,

living his life as I got older and the inadequacy that I felt from not having him in my life, that tangible reminder of the thing that I wanted and needed and seeing it, but not having access to it. It really was an additional, um, amplifier of, um,

the, you know, the, the pain and the confusion that I was dealing with. And as I got older, um, like, like you were sharing, um, we believe that we know what's best for ourselves. And, uh, what I believed was that, well, I must not be valuable because of this. So I want to prove to myself and to the world that, um,

I have value and it really lends to the first chapter of the book where it talks about this false approval where many people, including myself, can believe if I had the right people or enough people or enough things or if I was in the right place or if I was in the right situation, the right relationship, the right car, the right house, so on and so on, if I had something

I would feel something different. And it's just not true because we all have this wounded heart that only Jesus can fix. But it's easy to believe the lie that I can have enough stuff to fix myself. Or enough approval or whatever it is. And it's sort of a bottomless pit. And I feel like it gets deeper the more that we dig it and try to find peace and satisfaction in something or someone else.

that it only becomes tougher to keep digging and to keep trying to fulfill that emptiness short of what I believe and you as a Christian that this relationship with God as a person, as a personal savior to help fill that hole. I mean, there are so many things that we can chase as a human being, which may give temporary satisfaction, but long-term we're going to be left more empty.

Yeah. I mean, you look at scripture, John 16, 33 talks about, you know, Jesus having this conversation with his disciples and he's telling them, okay, I've told you all of this stuff. I've told you all these things so that in me, you can have peace. And in this world, you will face tribulation. You will face trial. Stuff will happen that you don't understand. You'll make mistakes. People will hurt you, but you can take heart or you can be of good courage because I'm

I have overcome the world. And it leads us to know that peace is not attainable on our own. It's found in Jesus. And courage is not found on our own because it's easy to believe that we can be the hero of our story, but we can't. But there is a hero that has come into this world and died the death that we deserved and paid the price that we owed. And we can rely on him. And the byproduct of that is

is living the life that's available to us. It's the, you know, finding purpose, finding freedom, finding satisfaction truly. And that is the thing that changed my life. Yeah. And, you know, we can flounder around and try to figure this out for ourselves. But at the end, it ends up being this beautiful equation where we show up with our worst. And he's like, great, here's all my best. And it covers everything. And let's make this exchange. I mean, it really, you can't get a better deal than that.

How does a porn star come to know Jesus, and how does he live the life that I'm living today? And that's what's offered to everyone, where I wrote down on a piece of paper that I didn't want to live anymore because I thought I disqualified myself from being to the world in a way that led to positive change. I wrote that down. I still have that piece of paper. Yet God

God met me where I was and He took me to where I couldn't go on my own. And Ephesians 3:20 is real. You know, that's why every time I have the opportunity to sign a book for someone or talk with someone, Ephesians 3:20 is ready to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever hope or imagine because that's just who He is.

Yeah, so much better, as you said, than we could even in our wildest dreams think about peace or acceptance or any of those things. And for you, you had this dark season in LA. You had a realization because you talk about how you had a stage name and everybody called you by that. Even people at your gym and your barber and everywhere else that you were living under this other name.

And after a transaction at a bank where you have to use your real name, somebody referred to you by your name, Joshua. And that kind of startles you awake in some ways that, you know, this life you were living was completely false in every way. Yeah. I mean, I think, um, you know, to, to, to make light of it sometimes just because it was such a dark time in my life, I would say, uh, the, the tropic thunder reference where I was a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude. Um, but I, that's just kind of where I was where, um,

I had created a plausible reality based on guilt, shame and pride. And the pride aspect, most people think pride is boastful, but sometimes pride is not allowing people into your life and thinking that you have to pretend to be OK when you're not.

And that led me to removing anyone that loved me enough to tell me the truth that contradicted with how I was living from my life. And that left me with people who were patting me on my back, but to my detriment, because what when I laid my head down on my pillow at night, I was overcome with anxiety and depression and feelings of worthlessness.

So there came a time when you were working at a gym. There was an attractive young lady that was there as well. You want to spend some time with her. And eventually that happened. But you felt compelled to tell her the truth about your life to that point. And instead of rejection or running from you, you found something very different from her that was obviously very powerful.

Yeah, I mean, so this is two years removed from me being in the adult film industry. And I'm working in the health and fitness industry and, you know, trying to do enough good things to not feel bad about the bad things I've done. But I'm really wrestling with a lot of things still. And

And I just feel like, OK, this girl is amazing and I can't hurt her. So I'm going to do the thing that felt probably the most counterintuitive at that point in my life where I'm going to tell her the truth. And I told her essentially I gave her, you know, I come from a acting background. So I gave her a five minute monologue of here's how bad I am.

And she was pretty taken back by that. But her response was, are you doing those things now? And I said, no.

And then she proceeded to look at me very seriously and say, well, you're not defined by the worst thing you've ever done. And you're not defined by the greatest thing you'll ever do. There is a creator that exists outside of you, me and everything else. And he created everything. And he determines who you are. Do you know him?

And I grew up going to church as a kid, but never really had a relationship with Jesus. I had an intellectual knowledge about there being a creator God, but certainly not a relationship with Jesus. And that's what she told me that she had, that she had been a follower of Jesus since she was in seventh grade and that her family were all followers of Jesus and that

She wasn't perfect by any means, she said, but her life, the foundation in which she lives her life, how she makes day-to-day decisions were contingent on her relationship with Jesus. And then she proceeded to ask me, what kind of food did I like and what kind of goals did I have? And I was just so shocked because I truly believed if anyone knew me,

then they would want nothing to do with me. And she confronted the worldview in which I created my identity because I created my identity based upon I had done bad things. So I was a bad person and I felt unwanted by many people. So I thought that I was not valuable and I was a bad person. So this is just who I am.

And she kind of shattered that with one, hey, you're wrong. But she did it in a way that was full of love and gentleness. But this certainty that was almost calming in a way, and it created this curiosity in me. And then she invited me to church the following week. And in that church, I heard the gospel and prayed.

You know, that was almost a decade ago. And her name is Hope. And we've been married for almost eight years and we have four boys. And right away I knew I'm like, OK, well, this is amazing. But I feel like I need to tell people about this story. And I went to this church and I shared with a pastor there my story and they spent time with me.

teaching me how to read the Bible, teaching me how to study the Bible. And not too long after that, went to Liberty University, studied Christian ministries and studied theology. And I just spent time even in counseling while I was getting this theological education. I was healing and I was learning and just everything I thought was not possible, I have. And

And that's, you know, it's such a beautiful story, but it points to a God that stands ready to do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever hope or imagine. And he wants to meet you in the middle of your chaos and love on you and change you and give you peace and purpose.

We'll have more Livin' the Bream in a moment.

Somehow they won't go away no matter what I do, no matter how incredibly awful and mean I am to them. But I don't mind doing this work. In fact, if I'm being honest, I think it's God's work. So make sure y'all follow me on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts for new episodes every Wednesday. I was reading this week about Jesus, some of his interactions with the Pharisees where they're

you know, looking down at him and how are you spending time with these people and what are you doing? And he's basically like, well, people don't need to go to the doctor. Healthy, good people don't need to go to the doctor. And if you guys think you're good, okay.

But I'm here to help people who need help, who, you know, you don't get well and then go to the doctor. You go to the doctor with what you have, with what you're working with, whatever your illness is, whatever your trial is. And that is so comforting. Again, we're talking to Joshua Broom. His new book is Seven Lies That Will Ruin Your Life. What my journey from porn starter preacher taught me about the truth that sets us free. What are some of the other lies that can take over our life?

Yeah, I loved writing this book because some people would think, OK, you know, I've been sharing my story for quite some time. And some people might know me from sharing my story. And I advocate against pornography a lot. And you do do some work with pornography.

you know, at Capitol Hill and regarding legislation and do some other things like that. But this book, it's not about my testimony or it's not about pornography, but it certainly has both of those things in it. Rather, it's a recipe for healing from many of those things and more things that we believe that, you know,

And so, you know, when we believe lies that are untrue and the problems that they cause, but the sixth and the seventh chapter are probably two of the most powerful ones and the ones that I love the most. Chapter six is about this imitation intimacy. And.

And I mean, you look at the world and regarding how prolific the consumption of pornography is, it makes more money than the NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball all combined. Or if you're not a sports person, Disney and Netflix combined, and it's still short.

several billion dollars. 33% of all the data transferred on the internet on a daily basis is pornography. So it's so prolific and it's impacting people in so many ways. And I think it really points to this overarching story that's happened from the beginning of time. Our heart longs to be known.

And we were designed to long for intimacy. But if we believe that we can find intimacy outside of first knowing God and understanding love through the lens of he first loved us, what happens is we find ourselves with a counterfeit.

And I love this story in Exodus 32 that really points to where Moses was up the mountain getting the Ten Commandments and he comes down and Aaron and this unruly crew have melted down gold and created this golden animal. This golden calf has been referenced too, and they were calling it Yahweh. And I think

There's a longing for us to be known by something bigger than ourselves, but sometimes we put our hurt and our presuppositions on something that we call God, but it's not God at all, and we worship it. And I think that's what we've done with sex. The reason that my story is such an anomaly, because in this culture, sex is a God, and we worship it. And I think that it really points to our heart.

We can't trust our heart. Our heart longs for the wrong things. And that's just the big overarching theme in the sixth chapter. And then the seventh chapter is hijacked healing, where we pretend like we're okay when we're not, and we feel like we can find solutions outside of the things that actually work and

What's true with everyone is sin is our biggest problem and Jesus is our greatest need. So if we try to put band-aids on wounds that we can't fix, we're going to walk around wounded and we're going to walk with a spiritual limp. And even if

you know, you're, you're a follower of Jesus. There's Christians that are forgiven, but not healed. And I think that there's a need for confession. That's really important because we're the most connected generation in the history of time, while simultaneously being the most disconnected generation in the history of time because of social media and things like that, where we want people to know about us, but not truly know us and,

And until we're truly known, we won't admit the wounds that we have. And we desperately need that. And for me, I had blamed everything that had ever happened to me, good and bad, or just most of the bad. And I just really clung to God.

The reason that I did the things I did was because my father wasn't there. And what I would say is while the things that happened to you that caused you mental and emotional trauma, those things did hurt you. But what is also true is that they did not force your hand.

And where I had to get to was a place where I took ownership of the mistakes that I made, saying that God, upon my own volition, I chose to sin against you. And I had to forgive my father. And sometimes what's really difficult is to extend forgiveness to people with the fear of

the relationship not being reconciled to the extent that we hope or we want. But, you know, that was my big thing. And I had to understand I'm not God. And while I don't have the relationship that I wish I had with my father, our relationship's better than it ever has been. And it's because I had to let go of what I thought should be.

Yeah. And sometimes that's the hardest thing we have to do in life. I love the statement that you said, like so many of us now want people to know about us, but they don't want to know us. Like we don't want them to know us. And that's that vulnerability in that place of being out there warts and all this social media world that we live in, encourage us to only show the things that are really easy and beautiful and fun in our lives.

But that's such a good point. Again, we've been talking to Joshua Broom. He's a pastor, a speaker, author. His new book just out, Seven Lies That Will Ruin Your Life, What My Journey from Porn Star to Preacher, taught me about the truth that sets us free. March 5th. Joshua, thank you for stopping by Live in the Broom to tell us all about it.

Absolutely. It's my absolute joy. And thank you for having me. Listen ad-free with the Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app. The Fox News Rundown. A contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters, and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to foxnewspodcast.com.