Hope for Sexual Brokenness - Part 1 (Episode 92)

Brent interviews Blaine Bartel as he shares his story of resurrection from sexual brokenness.  They discuss the process of healing from any brokenness and how it is possible to find a new life of freedom and health.

Transcript:

Welcome to Life and Love Nuggets, where Licensed Therapist Brent and Janice Sharpe share how you can thrive in your life, your love, and your relationships. Welcome back to Life and Love Nuggets. And Janice Sharpe, not so today. I got a special friend with me today. There is an aura around her chair. Just enjoy that. So I got a really special guest today that we got some important stuff to talk about, and just so proud of what you're doing in the world, and how you're giving your life to others, to men and couples, and about what you're actually doing, and how that came about, all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, I was looking for a little bio that I could read about you, and I thought, doing this. So kind of tell me what you're doing, what you're passionate about right now, like, and so that they can kind of know. A lot of people know your name, they know about you, and your work in the world, but what are you passionate about, and what you're working on right now? Well, Brent, it's good to see you, as always. You're, you know, you're one of my favorite people in the world. I tell Janice all the time, would you tell me if he ever sins, because I've never seen Brent sin. He's just, and I know you have, but I've never witnessed it.

I'm living that closed off life. You've just been such a kind soul in my life. So yeah, my work is based on my story. So 15 years ago, my life as it was in 2010 ended. I finally disclosed, forcibly disclosed to my, the people that were closest to me, my church board, my wife, my children, my close friends, disclosed 23 years of sexual brokenness, addiction, stronghold. We'll go into that later. But anyways, I went on a journey for the next three years to try to conquer that and figure out what that looked like, and it was hard.

And Jesus met me on a highway from Kansas to Tulsa one day into that journey, and I heard these words. I wasn't praying. I was just driving, and I just heard these words, I'm not going to give you a recovery. I'm calling you into resurrection. And that was very close to the time that I was getting to know you and Sanctuary Church, Bishop Ed. And so the Lord began to just take everything that I'd learned to that point, but then add this idea of what resurrection looked like. And the idea was that Jesus didn't come to make bad people good.

He came to make dead people alive. And He introduced me to the cross like I'd never been introduced to it, and what it meant to die to my old self, to my ego, to my pride, to my brokenness, my trauma, my pain, and then what resurrection looked like to be free from my past. And so by God's grace, He completely set me free. And from that, I began to just have a lot of men approach me and say, hey, how did you find freedom from pornography and sexual brokenness and addiction? And I found myself just in a lot of conversations. And over time, I realized, you know, I love this. I love helping guys.

And Laurie and I love helping marriages. So it turned into a full-time ministry. I never thought I'd be doing this, Brent. I mean, I was a youth evangelist and a TV guy for 10 years. You were like a star, man. I was my own little rock star in my own mind, but yeah, it was awful. No, the ministry was fine, but it was, yeah, it was, Christian celebrity is not good.

So doing that, but yet something going on underneath that was never known, yeah. Yeah. So we, today, to finally answer your question, today we have a master class for men. It's eight-week program called Ketheros, the Jesus Pathway to Purity. So we have literally thousands of guys that have gone through that either at their church or personally. And then we go out and speak and do a lot of men's events and things like that. But primarily, I'm home at a place called House of Resurrection.

So we have a residential ministry center for men, for marriages and pastors to come in and get help when they're struggling. Yeah, beautiful. And you will be there next weekend. That's right. We do a marriage intensive and we got three couples coming in from across the country and you'll help to disciple them into healing. So we're really excited about partnering with you on that. Well, I've just been so impressed.

You said some really important things there, this sense of openness, this sense that my life died, it came to the end. And that's the whole idea of resurrection is that God didn't come to just kind of always say, He's not painting over rust to try to make us look better on the outside so that we're better people. But if we can let ourselves die, then He makes us new. I mean, that's the whole point of resurrection, right? Yeah. We're made new and alive. Yeah. I think one of the misconceptions I had of what resurrection looked like for us is that it was somehow this instantaneous miraculous thing because Jesus rose from the dead instantly. Right. But when Mary runs to the tomb and can't find him and she's looking for him, she finds a gardener and she says, where have you laid him?

And of course, this was Jesus. And the implication is that resurrection can look and feel ordinary in the moment. And it is a gardening experience. That's good. It is the planting of God's seeds of love and life and joy and hopefulness and allowing those seeds to be cultivated to become that new man or new woman that the Lord wants you to be. So I don't want people to be thinking, you know, I could just- It's not magic. Yeah, die and resurrect. Right. You know, there is that cultivation and developing what Eugene Peterson calls the practices of resurrection where we begin to practice something different than what we're used to, and it results in radical transformation. Yeah. It is the day in and the day out.

It's a marathon. Yeah. We in the faith culture want it to really just be that instant thing. And we want to, you know, maybe I got to work at it a bit, you know, let's sprint our way there. Yes. And I realized, no, no, this is a marathon. This is an ongoing, the rest of your life, right?

And so Janice and I, just a couple of podcasts ago, we talked about, I don't know if you're aware of John Ortberg and Ian Cron have come out with a couple of, they both came out the same month in January, 12 Steps for Everybody. Oh, wow.

It's- That's great. You're going to love it. I've been like, all of my life, I've been seeing these people that are in real recovery that have really come to the end of themselves, and God gives us all an opportunity. He doesn't make us come to the end of ourselves, but he gives us opportunity, and sometimes it can be painful. You talked about it was almost forced, right? It was a hard thing. And if we can come to the end of ourselves and say, I got nothing here.

I can't do this myself. There's something in my life that I can't fix, but there's a God in the world that can put my life in order, and I'm going to release control of my life into his hands. And those are the first three steps, you know, and they talk about, I've always thought, this needs to be, everybody needs this. This isn't just the basement of the church, the addicts or whatever, okay? We all have some addiction in our life. We all have something in our life that we're wrestling with. And so, they both came out with these books, like, it was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

But it's what you're speaking about, you know, and it's been my experience with you, people that are what I would consider in real recovery, in real resurrection, you know, life. They start with that emptiness, that absolute let go. And when we first met, I saw that in you, you know, I saw your openness, your honesty, no pretension. I'm like, desperate for God every day. And it was like, this guy's got to get there, you know? And then of course, I've just been watching you now, and it's just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Well, God brought you into my life, and Janice, in the first couple years of that resurrection.

And of course, Bishop Ed Gungor, you guys were co-pastors at the time at Sanctuary Church. And I remember something that you guys said to me, is you invited me into that context, and eventually I served as kind of a helps ministry director. But you knew that where I'd come from and where my struggles were in the past, and that I was in the new mercies of God, beginning to cultivate, you know, a new life. And you spoke to me and said, Blayne, we invite you into this community, and we invite you to struggle well. And I didn't quite know what that meant, but asking, you explained that struggling poorly is hiding, keeping secrets, you know, trying to win little battles on your own when you need each other. And you just said, when you struggle, if you have any kind of relapse, any kind of heavy temptation, whatever, come to us and let us help you. And so I took that to heart.

And I remember meeting with you for two years. Every Tuesday morning at seven o'clock at, what was it called? Fourth Watch, I think, or Third Watch, First Watch, or whatever it was. It was a have a free counseling session, basically just, you know, share things that were going on in my life when I needed to, bring confession to the table. But it was just absolutely liberating to be in a community like that. And I think that may be the most important part of recovering and resurrection and seeing transformation in our life is not doing it and opening our lives up to one another. Yeah. I think that is the key, you know, and you took the risk to let that happen because it's risky, you know, and, I mean, that's what we'd always tried to do in the church is be safe.

And we talked about that a lot. We just want to be safe. So, because we knew people that are opening their lives up to real, it's risky because not everybody handles that very well. You know, I mean, we all know there's a we share our stuff and then they step up into a little higher position now and, well, okay, I got my act together and, oh, bless your heart. You know, we know that feeling, you know, and, and so it keeps people closed off. And so where healing comes in confessional, confessing our sins to one another that we will be healed, it gets blocked because of the fear of what people are going to think of us. And, and you were in a place in your life where you were to take the risk, you know, you knew what wasn't working, you know, and the, and the, the pain of all of that.

And, and you were pretty desperate for freedom and you were, you took that risk because not everybody can, not everybody goes there, you know? And so, and we do use that idea a lot that we talk about struggling well, and I know it just, it doesn't necessarily preach great, you know, in Tulsa.

Well, struggle, we should be overcoming. We're more than conquerors, we're not struggling well. But one of my beliefs, and again, I know it doesn't preach great, but I think it is just truth is that God really allows us all to have stuff, have a place that we realize we can't fix. I'm just always amazed at Paul's story, you know, and the thorn, whatever that was, Lord, please take this away, you know, and God like, no, you're not going to do it. Because then you would think you don't need me. So my grace is sufficient. My strength is sufficient.

And Paul goes on to say some crazy stuff, at least doesn't sound, doesn't sound American. I learned to boast in my weakness, because it's in my weakness I'm made strong. I mean, that just is an upside down kind of kingdom thinking, you know? And so that's where we encourage, I think we all have a bit of a limp. Again, I just know that just people struggle with that. And even people that go through difficulties, they want to get fixed so that they're good now, so that everybody thinks they're like fully fine. And I think the healthiest place is no, there's stuff in my life, I still have to turn over to God every day.

And I'm dependent on him. And that's where I find my strength. Because, you know, we all want to control our own worlds. We want to be in charge. And so if I can, okay, God, I got it, you know, I think I got enough now, I'll handle it from this point on. I think we all have that tendency. And I think staying in that openness, that recognizing our limp, but doing it well, which is in community, that's why I love the program you're doing in churches.

It's a group. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's the greatest place of healing, in my experience, what I believe for all of us is to be fully known and fully loved. Yes. And to be fully known, that has to be in community. Yeah. And I think everybody's kind of scared of that. Yeah. It's interesting, on the heels of getting back from Kansas to Tulsa, the Lord had me read John 11, the story of Lazarus.

And all of a sudden, I was just writing down these things that he was revealing to me out of this story. But Lazarus had a tough day, you know, he was sick, very sick. They call for Jesus and Jesus doesn't run home to Bethany. He takes four days. And in the process of those four days of whatever sickness and pain, Lazarus dies. And I just find it interesting that, you know, Jesus is okay with whatever we're going through. He's not worried about it getting worse or how bad it's gotten.

If we will just allow him to show up, and sometimes dying is the only way that happens, in Lazarus's case, there was no more resistance. But you just get to this place where you have nothing, you can't do it, you're in complete surrender. And that's when Jesus loves to show up and bring that resurrection. And the beauty of that story, when we talk about community, is he comes out of the grave in his grave clothes. Yeah, he's alive, but there's some unfinished business. And Jesus says to his friends and family, help him take those grave clothes off. And that's what I found is that, yeah, there was a spark and power of resurrection that I was beginning to sense and feel and see in my life, but I needed grace.

Graveclothes taken off still. and there were men like you and others who helped to get those off so that I could dress again, walk again, and do the work. And the beauty of our pain and our brokenness and God's resurrection and healing is it leaves us with a story that we can pass on. So Lazarus, according to some church history, moved after Jesus died and rose from the dead. moved about 30, 40 miles away and became a pastor. And I can only imagine what Easter Sunday was like at his church as he spoke about resurrection. So yeah, our pain turns into God's purpose.

That's so good. There is that kind of resistance to giving up, to dying, to letting go. We just want to, what are the three steps I need to do to fix this, you know? And oftentimes, particularly for men, I mean, I think that's the beauty of your ministry. I mean, I know you're working with marriages too, but it's, you know, I think one of the, there's strength in it, but one of the curses, if we could say, of manhood is I just want to do it by myself. You know, I don't need anybody. I can figure this out myself.

And that keeps us disconnected from one another, you know, and it keeps us disconnected, I think, from the healing. And so this idea that we all have something, we all have, you know, you said in the beginning that, you know, for Janice to let you know if I ever sinned. Right, right, right. Well, I've already told these folks that, you know, one of my, you know, major sins ultimately was workaholism. Right. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. You do.

You do work a lot. But it was, I say, it was not, it was socially applauded. Yes. Yes. So I stayed stuck longer than if I had had some obvious, I tell people, it'd been better if you could get arrested. Right. For working too many hours, you know. Yeah. And get handcuffed and drugged downtown and stuff.

But it was still, it was my way of controlling my world, trying to make everything right and show everybody how good work that I did in whatever area so that I could get my own sense of self from that instead of from God. It was this, it's a sin and it still is. It's still some, it's my, one of my ways that I limp, you know.

What's your Enneagram number? Do you know? I'm a one. And that is? Performer. Performer. Okay. There you go.

Some say perfectionist. I was going to say perfectionist because yeah. I don't like that word, but yes. Whatever you do, you go the extra mile. Yeah. Like even you guys can't see this set up here right now, but it's unbelievable. I was like, how did you do all this?

I just figured it out. That's you. Oh yeah. So it's a, of course my, the nemesis in that, you know, is for years I, you know, ones can walk in a room and 99% of it is fine, but I see the one thing that's out of order, you know? Yes. And, um, and I used to live in a way that I had to go fix that. I have to get everything in my world perfectly.

And then I can find, you know, I can relax and I can have peace and stuff and crazy. Isn't it crazy?

I was driving my children crazy. I was driving my wife crazy and, um, and it was, um, and I've told the story, you know, some podcasts could go about this, but I had to come to the end of myself, you know, I was pretty miserable. You know, now again, it didn't, it wasn't a socially unacceptable, you know, shameful kind of thing, you know, um, that was obvious as obvious, but it's the same thing. You know, that's why, that's why even the message that I'm hoping that people can hear from all of this is when you had a unique struggle that most guys struggle with and you know, you can speak to that a little bit, you know, I mean, if, if, if, you know, guys are simply just breathing, they're gonna face some challenges in this area, you know, and trying to just do it on their own and handle it all and manage it all is we can get taken out quicker, you know, but if we can open that up to others and do this in community and the strength of that, it's a strength, not a weakness, you know, and to need others. And yet it's so contrary to our, it's, it's counterintuitive. Yeah. Yeah. It is. Yeah. You, you were talking about, uh, just the access today to evil, to the possibility of addiction and infidelity.

Um, I mean, we walk out the door and every day it's a battle and, and then we bring the battle home. Um, I mean, guys, guys that I'm working with today, and you probably see this too, Brent, but, uh, that are in their thirties, um, most of them started or were, were introduced to porn, uh, at about 10, you know, nine. And it's because of this, you know, um, think about it up until 2001, you know, computers and internet started coming on in order to access that you had to go to like a CD convenience store and they were in the, they were in the back, you know, you couldn't eat the, the, the the convenience employee had to, had to give it to you and you had to be 18. And all of a sudden within like a year or two, uh, America just said, everyone can have this. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone can look, anyone can have it and it's free and it's accessible.

So, uh, there, there, if you're, if you're watching, if you're listening to this right now and, uh, especially if you have children like protect them from the internet while they're young, protect them or at least supervise and monitor, uh, don't just give them a cell and all the internet and all the things, because it's not that your kids are bad. They're just curious and they'll find their way there. And, uh, and, and we know that we get those guys and in some cases, even women, uh, who 10 or 15 years later are completely addicted to this thing. It's destroying their life and their marriage. So, uh, yeah, the culture today is, is not an easy one. Yeah. At those ages, as a matter of fact, we're just the last podcast we talked about social media and phones and just exactly what you're talking about and the research that's out that during, during adolescence, you know, um, and early adulthood is when it, it's when it's being used at the highest levels, but it's where it is so, uh, risky, uh, cause Brains are forming, um, you know, sense of self is forming, uh, sexualities coming online and oh my gosh, all that gets intertwined in there.

That age is, they're just not capable of handling. I don't care how mature they are, you know, they need support. And if we can, the beauty of what you do is if we can just be open about it, dads and moms, dads can say to son, Hey son, this is, this is going to be hard. I have to work on this, you know, and have to make sure that I'm inviting God's strength into my life and protecting myself from boundaries in my life and certain things that I just don't do. And how, let me help you with that. You know, it's not a, you're bad and you're, what'd you look at and you know, but it's just a, no, this is going to be a thing, you know? And so I think the hard thinking back to being a father and raising three teenage boys, uh, when I look back, the hardest thing was how do I start this conversation and how do I get them interested in having this conversation?

And then what, what do I tell them? Like I didn't, I wasn't my, my dad told me, Blaine, don't do it.

But if you do do it, use protection. That's what he said.

That was it. The start and beginning of my, my sexual, uh, discipleship. Um, so my dad didn't say a word, he just left it. Oh, wow. So I thought, what could we do for, uh, especially for boys to start with? What could we do for teenage boys? Um, and what can we do for, for maybe moms and dads or, or youth pastors?

And so we put together a 30 day, uh, program for teenage boys and it's got four videos that are 30 minutes kind of training videos, uh, that are meant for parents and for their teenage boy to walk, watch together. There's a little journal and then it's got a little, uh, Q and a stuff for mom or dad or both to just have a conversation. So you don't have to be the one to kind of say, well, this is, this is a Y or this is, you know, we do that for you. And then parents can come along and after each video, just say, what'd you think about that? You know, what'd you think about what Blaine said about that? So, uh, it's really, we've, we've done this for about two years. We've just seen so many parents finally have an avenue in a way of just sitting down with their son, uh, once a week for four weeks and just helping them to develop what we call the Jesus sex ethic and how beautiful sex is in its context and, uh, in, in its, uh, in its, uh, right place and then how destructive it can be, um, when we, uh, get it out of that, out of that place.

What a way to diminish and eliminate shame, um, and, and to present the love of God and the love of God through parents, through a dad and a mom to their kids. And cause that is, you know, shame and we could talk about that a lot, you know, that, that is one of the killers, you know, and, um, and I think the church has not known how to deal with that, you know, and a lot of our messages have just been shame based. If I can just make you feel bad enough, right, then maybe you'll be a good boy, right?

You'll finally quit. Yeah. And instead of understanding the wonderful creation of God and the beauty of our sexuality and, and yet it is a powerful thing that can be poisoned and how do we link arms with our kids and with each other, um, and walk this out in a, in a way that that is in the presence of the amazing love of God. And so I love that. So, so how do we, how do, how do they get, how do they get this? Uh, just go to our website again. It's on the website.

Just which is blainebartell.com. Yeah. And just Google, you'll find it. So is this the best way to find everything about you? Yep. It is. Uh, that website will lead to house of resurrection.life, which is our residence, uh, for, uh, for men and marriages and ministers.

And by the way, we, uh, part of, uh, what, what we've been compelled to do, Lori and I is to provide pro bono treatment to pastors, uh, as we know, pastors, uh, don't make a lot of money, don't have a bunch of money sitting around in most cases. And, uh, just, it's hard, you know, when crisis hits, uh, so we just wanted to have a safe place, uh, for them to come and not have to, uh, be stretched, you know, uh, financially in a way that could hurt their family. So we're really, uh, we're, we probably have, uh, two to three pastors a month that are coming in right now. And fortunately coming in before they get in serious, real serious crisis, um, we're just seeing a lot of them come in and just, they, they're confessing to, uh, kind of the first stages of giving into temptation in the last world. And before there's the affair before there's, you know, something that's, you know, catastrophic. And so we're able to help and work with them and they don't have to quit the ministry to get help, which is awesome. Yeah. I love that.

Well, I just, so I mean, I just feel like we have just done an introduction here. So much I'd like to talk about if you can hang for a bit, I'd love to just keep talking here, but we're gonna, we're gonna kind of bring this particular one, um, uh, to a wrap. And so, um, blainbartill.com, okay. Uh, can find things about the small group church work. I want you to talk about this little book, um, and our next, next time that we do it and your first book that came out and then a vision for your second. I want you to talk about all that stuff in a minute, but, um, and particularly for those parents that this would be such an asset for, because I think, you know, I, I know, you know, I, I loved your dad, you know, we met, we missed him together. Um, I love my dad.

He was amazing, but they didn't know what to do. And they just hoped and prayed that we were going to be okay. And they were like, you know, when that topic came up, they're like deer in headlights and like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. So to have somebody that's, that does what you do to assist that is just spectacular. And in part two, when we come back, we do need to talk about marriage because you, uh, you gave me four things that changed my life on how to be married. Well, you, you told me it was possible to still be madly in love with my wife 10 years after I married her and I wasn't sure I believed you, but it has proven true. Love it.

Well, we'll talk about that a little bit more. Well, so for now, um, the, uh, we're just trusting we do this stuff together just because we want you to be able to thrive in your life, your love, your relationships. And so for today, go in peace blessings as you go. The life and love nuggets podcast is a 501 C three nonprofit and is supported by gifts from people like you. to donate, go to life and love nuggets.com. Slash donate. This podcast is produced by Clayton creative in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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