Workman is Worthy Ministry

Steph Curry

We're talking about Hollywood Christians in this hour. I use the professional basketball athlete named Steph Curry as a picture, or an illustration, of what that is. 

What do I mean by "Hollywood Christian"? If you hear me or read me, over time, you'll notice me using that phrase here and there. Hollywood Christian usually means one of two things, from me. It's either a fictional character that entertainment producers put forth in their movies and programs who we're meant to believe is a Christian, their version of a Christian. The world's version of a Christian is almost always a crazy pervert and you must understand that. You must understand that the devil controls pretty much all major media and communication and entertainment. The devil hates Christ, hates his followers, and that means he influences people who reject Christ to hate Christ, too. This is so basic and church going folk everywhere just don't get it. 

The other definition I have for a "Hollywood Christian"? it's a real-life person who portrays himself as a Christian, who also happens to be famous and very visible for whatever reason. That second definition is what we're dealing with here. 

Steph Curry plays the Christian on TV, so to speak. The person with celebrity status claiming the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour is rare and noticeable, in a culture that is saturated with rich and famous people who openly deny Christ, openly mock and ridicule the King James Bible. 

So, when a Curry, or a Tim Tebow, or a Carrie Underwood or ...name more... whomever you're thinking of right now, steps out and says, "I'm a follower of Christ. I'm a Christian. I go to church, I grew up in church, I know some church type lingo," professing Christians out here admire them and begin to consume that celebrity's product and ideas and follow his social media and all of that. The average believer thinks to himself: "He's a Christian, so it's okay to take in his entertainment which is ultimately distracting me from God and God's word." That average believer really just wants to continue yoking up with the world and the world's entertainments. That average believer rarely gathers together all the things that the real-life Hollywood Christian says and does before the cameras, and before the unbelieving world.

Kissing trophies, which you won by defeating other men in battle or sport, is a form of worship. What are you worshiping? A spirit, a devil, a demon, that hides behind that competition and that trophy is receiving your worship... your kisses. We cannot deny that a kiss is a way of displaying affection. What is the athlete really kissing?

Someone already knows where I'm going with this, and someone is saying right now, "you can't judge Steph Curry's or anybody's heart." That's the common response, and it's technically true. The person who answers in this way is the "Judge not" type. This person misapplies Jesus's words, when he tells us, Don't judge hypocritically, but do judge rightfully, using my, that is Jesus's, words. Don't judge someone's speck or mote while you have a beam. 

This "judge not" type of person never stops to think: What if I got the beam out of my eye on an issue? or at least have repented and am working back to the narrow way? Then, I'm qualified to judge. I'm qualified and commanded to protect myself and those under my charge and those I just care for in the faith, from evil men and seducers, who want to change Christianity into some Santa Claus grandparent in the sky. 

They want a God who is okay with everything except rightfully judging wickedness and lies. They think God is only angry with bible believers who are trying to walk the walk. Except one of the Psalms says that God is angry with the wicked every day. I guess according to the world and to worldly Christians, the bible believers are the wicked ones.

I'm not judging Curry's salvation. But I have the obligation, that's given and commanded by God, to judge his words and actions. I could go further with the whole judgment thing and how twisted and perverted most professing Christians are on that subject. They're twisted up because they've allowed the world's entertainments to push a different brand of Christianity. 

The Bible says, if you're friends with and walking with the world, which hates the Christ you claim to love, you're making the Lord angry. You're fellowshipping with the unfruitful works of darkness. You're at enmity, that is an enemy of, the Lord. I'm just reading what the Bible says. You disagreeing tells me that you simply don't believe the Bible. And my suggestion would be, stop lying and telling people and yourself, that you love and believe Jesus Christ.

One nickname that basketball fanatics have for Steph Curry is "Threezus." It's a play on Curry's professed faith in Jesus Christ and Curry's talent at shooting the three-point shot. This nickname is simply a mockery of Christ... but I'm sure Curry thinks it's cool, harmless, and fun. Maybe he and maybe you don't know that the people who use names like that are laughing at Christians.

If you really loved Jesus, you'd love his words and keep his commandments. He said that more than once, himself. I already know you're a liar on that. God definitely knows it. You're out there drinking with the drunken, dancing their dances, you know all the popular songs that consistently speak against Jesus, you go see all the big box office films, you know all about the sports... lost people, currently on their way to hellfire for rejecting Christ as God? well, they see you, Christian. Other people hear and see you, playing the Christian as you wear your big crucifix necklace and tattoos and shirts, as you make a show of praying over your lunch at work, as you splash Christian bumper stickers on your car but give the middle finger from road rage, and they know you're double-minded and unstable. Why don't you know it? It has little to do with intelligence. It is a spiritual blindness. The Holy Spirit can rub some figurative clay and spit on your eyes, and get you seeing clearly, if you'll meet up with him.

Let's get to the meat of what we're talking about here: What does Steph Curry promote?

Is being a Christian just about appearing as a nice guy who holds small children on his lap? or is it about upholding the cause of Christ?

Before you get angry with me for asking or saying these things, Curry is known as a Christian. I'm just saying things of which people already aware. He publicly professes to be a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he may well be. I'm convinced that there will be people saved, true believers, who make it to glory, to heaven to be with Jesus Christ forever, who are deceived or too afraid to really stand for the true and living God. We can't know how many of those there are. We've all fallen short of the mark and the only thing God wants from us in this area is a true faith that he recognizes as real.

However. You can really, truly be saved, and be leading many others into the wrong direction. Does Curry and these other Hollywood Christians point to Christ, or to the world and finally Satan's way? Just answer the question!

First, the obvious one, Curry is part of the system that promotes sports idolatry. No matter how cute and nice he looks to you, he is drawing you into things that aren't cute and cuddly but deadly. While you wear his jersey and watch him, the arenas he plays in are full of lasciviousness and foulness. Now, you cannot deny that. The only thing you as a compromised Christian can do, is justify or paint over that.

"We're just watching sports," I get told. Yeah, I used to say that, too. The problem is, you're not just watching sports. You get the commercials which show you a bunch of things and places and cash, that you end up wanting to chase. You think you just want to watch basketball and football. You end up also consuming the movie trailers and popular music which influence you in ways you just don't want to admit. 

There aren't many of us who can resist a constant washing of covetuousness and lusts in our eyes and ears, without starting to think and believe and want differently. We start copying what is on that screen. 

Almost everyone you say this to, thinks that he or she is too strong, too willful, to be affected. But they're lying to themselves. Unfortunately you ain't lying to God. The Lord God, through His word, tells us to avoid, to stay away from, people that mean us spiritual harm. God commands us things to protect us, because he knows better what's good for us, than we do. Do you agree with that? Or are you agreeing with the unbelieving world which says that you should follow your heart? When God says that your heart and my heart and every person's heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and that we don't even know the depths of that wickedness? It's not easy to find preachers who even speak Jeremiah 17:9 with the proper gravity, the sober weight that it deserves. People don't believe that their hearts are desperately wicked! They think they're quote unquote, mostly good! It's just self deception.

The eye is the lamp of the body. The world says it as, the eyes are the windows to the soul. I'll stick with the King James Bible, but even the Christ rejecting, sin-embracing people of this world know that your eyes and ears are the entry points to what we're all about! 

Steph Curry poses with a wax figure statue of himself. Who gets statues made in their image? Men who are worshiped, idolized, as little-g gods. 

Curry defends sodomy. Remember the North Carolina bathroom law, so-called, where the state voted to not allow confused people to dress up like the opposite sex and enter their public restrooms. The NBA joined other leagues and entertainers in saying "well, we might not have our events in North Carolina if this resistance against perverts stands." Curry was and is on the world's side on that issue--not God's. Why? Money and fear. 

I heard one brother in Christ point out that sodomites is not only about men with men and women with women, working that which is unseemly in the sight of God. The overall definition of a sodomite is not only describing those who are taking part in such filthy acts, but those who accept, defend and promote and even encourage as healthy choice, those acts. Not just the quiet tolerance that the world says it wants from you. But also, giving a clear thumbs-up. 

Now if you're saying right now, "Oh, no one is trying to force you to accept and..." you're either lying or deceived. People who say things like I'm saying right now are being pushed aside in lots of ways. Jobs will increasingly be shut off to those who don't agree with this stuff. Children are indoctrinated into agreeing. That's a whole other discussion, and I am putting a lot of things into a nutshell in this message so it is not three hours long. But the point here is, you don't have to be taking part in so-called homosexual activities to be a sodomite. You simply give yourself over to accepting it. Overall, it's not just about gays and what they do. Accepting the sin of sodomy is just one of the last steps of vileness. If you accept that, you've already accepted casual sex between people who aren't married, which the real bible calls fornication. Yeah, I know, we're way past that, and I know it sounds completely outdated, and that's my point. You've already accepted that we don't have the words of God accessible to the common man and woman, and have begun writing your own rules and spiritual laws. You've already accepted that women need to leave their children or murder them before the children take a breath on their own. Which leads to the next point.

Curry exalts the agenda of women over men. He has young daughters, and the media loves to quote him talking about the opportunities he wants his girls to have. GQ magazine quoted Curry in 2015 as he talked about parenting his children: "You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do. However much we want to let our daughters into the world that I am in, there’s no wrong way to do it, it’s just your way.” 

Does that sound like a person who believes and trusts in the Bible? Again, no one is perfect, and I'm a husband and father who knows I don't get everything right and who makes plenty of mistakes both small and large in those roles. I have to repeat that kind of sentiment because some fool will soundbite me and act as if I'm some holier-than-thou preacher. But if you asked me, which Gentlemen's Quarterly surely NEVER will, I'm going to hold up what God says about parenting. 

A real Christian is not going to say, "There's no right way, no wrong way, just your way." A true believer is not going to say, "No one's going to box me in." Not even God, Steph? That is the philosophy of the world, which is in turn the philosophy of the devil. It is called, follow your heart. It is called, do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. And that goes directly opposite of the Bible, which says, every man and every woman's heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. The Bible says, Lean not unto your own understanding. 

All of you who follow this man and others, and model yourselves after them, ought to note that he cannot speak the wisdom handed to us by the Lord Himself. Maybe he doesn't even know those verses and commands. Maybe his preachers in his lifetime have been a bunch of ear-tickling cream puffs. That's usually the way it works. The preacher, the pastor, won't just open a Bible and read what it says, so the people don't know anything.

What do you think they'd say if he said, "I just want my daughter to be a great wife and mother"? Immediate pushback and less popularity, and those are the kindest reactions he'd get. It would get worse if he stuck to that. It would get worse if he started, not even quoting, but just paraphrasing or giving the principles of what the Bible says about what and who women should be in Christ. He cannot do that. Like the sodomite issue, he must stay in line. Because he's too visible and high up in the system. He has something to lose. The King James Bible says that you gain Christ when you give up, or lose, your own life. Is Curry giving up anything for the cause of Christ? Am I? Are you?

Curry upholds a social justice Christianity that doesn't save anybody. Gun control agenda had him and other NBA player make videos critical of guns. He's not gonna say no to that. Gotta stay in line. 

When Curry is publicly, openly, saying and doing things, and because of his talents has thousands or millions of fans, idol worshippers, followers, what have you, then his words and actions will reflect Christ. That's not up for debate. 

When a professing Christian stumbles in the public eye, he is the Christian who messed up. No one does that with atheists. No one does that with agnostics. We don't see headlines and blurbs that read "Humanist Professor Caught With His Student" or "Buddhist Bank Robber Kills Three During His Escape." But we do see, "Preacher Cheats" or such. The world likes to point out a professing Christian's errors, more than anyone else's. Other Christians do this, too. It makes the finger pointers feel justified in their sins.

In a similar way: When a professing follower of Christ goes before the unbelieving world and defends men with men and women with women, otherwise known as sodomy, the world will embrace him. The world will then use his lukewarm Chrsitianity to template all Christianity. The Christian who actually follows the Bible then looks unloving for pointing out what God loves and hates. The world wants you to accept perversion and open sin.

When Curry and other who I call Hollywood Christians do this, it bothers some belivers. The reason it bothers Christians is because he's clearly and consistently supporting the spirit of this world and its philosophies. 

What is the spirit of this world? The Bible says that it's the devil. 1st Corinthians 2 points to this. "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God." So, we know just from that, that the spirit of God is not agreeing with the world. "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." Go to Ephesians chapter 2 for that one. The spirit of the world is of hell, it's of the devil, it IS the devil, or Satan. 

We have to break things down this simply and directly because people think they're really smart in our time. Simple people understand these things. The rest are busy trying to wrest and wrangle the words of God into something that they want to do.

The point is that Steph Curry, and pretty much every other entertainer that you can name, is following the world, the spirit of the world, that is, the devil. You ask, "how can you say that?" I answer with another question: "What is the world?" The Bible says, it's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. If you cannot see that the National Basketball Association, and all the sports leagues, and all the popular culture entertainments, are those three things, you are seriously lacking in discernment.

If you want to keep those entertainments and somehow say that they're good, and edifying, and worthy of your attention and worship and praise and time and affection, you better examine yourself to make sure that you're even in the faith. That's what I did. I examined myself years ago, after spending most of my youth and young adulthood believing that I would make a living in sports media. I made some money writing and commentating on sports. I ended up, by the grace of God through the Holy Spirit, having my eyes open to the fact that I was just another idolater, and my main chosen idol was sports and athletes. 

We as Christians, as Christ like followers, ought to put the world's sources of entertainment down if they're not right, put the lost people's unbelieving man centered wisdom and information and science falsely so called down.

The problem we have as a body is, we're not going to. We're going to continue to be dismayed and discouraged as we watched apostate, falling away believers stand with the world and point at the church. Curry and all those Hollywood Christians that you love so much, quote unquote love, are going to be out there, apart from the true body of Christ, pointing at the real believers who aren't ashamed of the gospel. Listen: It's already happening. God's question for you and me is: Whose side are you on? Who will you stand with? My prayer for you and myself is that we are standing behind Jesus and not in front of him...