Fake Christianity: 10 Traps of an Inauthentic Faith

In his book, Fake Christianity: 10 Traps of an Inauthentic Faith (and How to Avoid Them), Dr. Jed Coppenger highlights the subtle hypocrisies that undermine authentic faith, such as prayerlessness, gossip, bitterness, and inattention to the Bible. Dr. Coppenger also points to poor church attendance, lack of evangelism, and various forms of ungodliness as issues which contribute to a weakened witness for both Christians and the church. Now, before you point out the in authentic faith of the believers in your life, it is highly recommended that you look in the mirror first.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:04):
You may be familiar with this term fake news, but
we're going to take that to the step within the
church called fake Christianity and ten traps of an inauthentic faith,
and how you can avoid them. Joining us right now
is my new friend, Doctor Jed Coppinger, and he's written
this resource, and I can't wait to unpack this with you, Jed.

(00:24):
He's serving as the lead pastor of First Baptist Church
near Atlanta, Georgia. And, you know, you're highlighting the subtle hypocrisies.
You know, those things that undermine a truly authentic faith,
like prayerlessness and gossip and bitterness in attention to the
Word of God. Let's talk about this, Jed. Thank you
for joining us on mornings with Tom and Toby.

S2 (00:45):
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

S1 (00:47):
Okay, so as we're doing this, you know, and I
was sharing this with you backstage, sometimes I think as
the body of Christ, we become the authentic faith police.
But I think we don't necessarily know what we're looking for.
So let me just start with you. And why did
you think it was necessary to write a resource like this?

S2 (01:06):
Well, I was I really didn't intend to write a
resource on this kind of topic, but I happened to
be in a season of prayer where I was asking
God what book should be next because my first book's
publisher asked me to consider writing another one, and I
just happened to preach on this message of Jesus delivers
on the Tuesday of Easter week from Matthew 23, in

(01:28):
my church, and there happened to be an acquisitions editor
there from Moody that asked me after the sermon to
consider turning it into a book. And so I felt
like that was something from the Lord enough to where
I considered it. And as I worked through this message,
I saw things that I had never seen before that
are really the big things that hold people back, that

(01:49):
have held me back from the joy and the peace
and the impact that I want to have with my life. And, um,
a lot of times we think it's the big things
we got to watch out for. But it's these subtle
little things, these hidden hypocrisies that Jesus talks about that
Jesus is talking about, that are holding us back. And
I thought, man, what a great message. Uh, for people

(02:10):
in this day and age where it's easy to see
the problems out there and we should see those, but
also to be equipped to know how to take our
next step forward as we follow Jesus Christ.

S1 (02:21):
Well, I love the fact that you took it away
from looking at others faith and having it look at
our own, especially those small things that we tend to ignore.
Doctor Jed Coppinger is our guest right now. And let
me ask you this. How do you actually define counterfeit Christianity?
I mean, are there characteristics or or things that we
need to be looking for from people that maybe are

(02:42):
displaying traits like this that is part of an inauthentic faith?

S2 (02:47):
Yeah. You know, Jesus's message is so sobering because it
really doesn't give us the easy answer. And what I
mean by that is an answer where we know it
and then we don't need to think about it ever again. Instead,
he shows us that actually sin is so deceitful that
it can cause us to believe things that aren't true.

(03:08):
It can cause us to go off track when we
think we're on track. And he's speaking to two types
of people. He's talking to people that aren't Christians or
aren't aren't people of the faith who have, uh, but
maybe don't know it, or they, they maybe know they're
playing games. That's not most people that are listening to
your radio program right now. Most of us are battling

(03:32):
with we're genuine Christians. Our salvation is secure. But we
Jesus wants more for us today. He wants us to
experience more of what it was said of Richard Sibbes
years ago. They said of him that heaven was in
him before he was in heaven. Man. That sounds. I
want that to be true of me. I want that
to be true of everybody. In order for that to happen,

(03:55):
we don't have to go try to be big time
Billy Graham. What we we really need to do is
see what Jesus has to say, where he's like. Examine
your life in those areas where you fail to practice
what you preach, or where you hold other people to
higher standards for others than you do for yourself. Or.
Or maybe your motives are more about performance mentality of

(04:17):
being affirmed and having that kind of attention and not
serving faithfully or or just focusing on the outside while
neglecting the inside that we can be. We can be.
Even as Christians, we can honor the Lord with our
lips while our hearts are far from him and he
wants more for us, that means we need to look

(04:37):
to him for our salvation, not our ability to identify
these areas, because our salvation alone is provided through Jesus
Christ alone and what he did for us on the cross.
But as we know that the cross breaks the power
of sin and pays the penalty of sin, the presence
of sin is still ongoing. And so we still we've
got to battle through these areas and say, Lord, where,

(04:58):
where do I need to take my next step? And
he provides a lot of them for us in this message.

S1 (05:05):
You know it when you see it, especially in somebody else.
Fake Christianity. But do you recognize it in the mirror?
That's the big question of the day. Doctor Jed Coppinger
is here with us, and he's written a resource, Fake
Christianity ten traps of an inauthentic Faith and How to
Avoid Them. Jed, let me ask you. I'm not going
to ask you to share all ten of these, but
can you maybe share a handful, like three of these

(05:27):
traps that we could avoid?

S2 (05:29):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the ones that
is most challenging to me is how Jesus says fake
Christianity focuses on the outside while neglecting the inside. He
says that we can be like whitewashed tombs at that
time that were beautiful on the outside, but was were
filled with dead people's bones. And he says that we

(05:50):
all need to watch out for that version of Christianity
that that essentially is, uh, just totally fine. Saying the
right things, thinking the right things, but having a heart
that isn't fully alive to God. James warns us about
that kind of Christianity in James chapter one and two.
He talks about how, listen, demons know the right answers

(06:13):
to the biblical test. Uh, there's a faith that's dead,
that it doesn't have any works. He says you can't
just say the right things, know the right things, but
you need to have a heart that's engaged with Jesus.
That is that is following him. And I found even
as a pastor that there are times where I've just
felt dead on the inside and the scriptures say that's

(06:36):
going to happen. But what Jesus is wanting us to
know is that that's an emergency, that that's not okay.
That that's not something that we should accept as a
normal thing, but that something that we need to fight
to kind of stir by, by getting around God's people,
by getting God's Word in our heart, by listening to
the right kind of music to to battle, you know,
Jake Ryle, the 19th century bishop. He said that that

(07:00):
two marks of a genuine Christian that really stood out
to him after decades of working with Christians are one
new inner peace, which is what most of us think about.
But also, he says, new inner warfare. And I think
that in order for us to really live out the
authentic faith that Jesus wants for us, that means we're
going to have to be the kind of people who

(07:21):
who battle to get our hearts alive and engaged with
the living God.

S1 (07:25):
Oh, thank you so much for saying that, because some
of us just think that, well, you know, I'm not
quite aligned with the Lord, and I'll just kind of
slide my way into it. There is a battle over
your soul each and every day, and I love that
posture of battle. And then also not just focusing on
the externals, which is the easy part. So you look right,
you say the right things, but inside you're dead and
you know it and you don't know how to address it.

(07:46):
I love that first point, that first trap to avoid.
What's the next one?

S2 (07:51):
You know, another one that really is challenging to me
is where Jesus says that fake Christianity condemns others mistakes
while denying its own. Jesus is talking about the tendency
to be able to see sin and other people, that
we may be right about, that it may be sin
and something that they're they're wrong about. But in the process,
we're blinded to our own. Uh, Jerry bridges wrote a

(08:14):
book called Respectable Sins, and he talks about this phenomenon,
how we as Christians, um, can can see other and
condemn other sins like we should, but we fail to
be alarmed by our own sins. And he lists several
and they're like, uh, you know, sins of the tongue.
We gossip and slander very easily in the hallways of

(08:37):
our churches or in our homes or we we, uh,
are impatient in an ungodly way, or we get angry
or we we are anxious in ways that that reveal
a lack of trust or fearful in ways that show
we don't really believe God will take care of us,
or different things like this. And he says, hey, these are.

(08:59):
These aren't small things. These are on the same list
of sins that we see. The kind of varsity sins,
you know, so to speak. He says we have the
right all together, because the Bible wants us to see
that although the consequences of certain sins may be more
severe immediately, there are, uh, eternal alarms going off with

(09:20):
any area where we miss God's mark. And oftentimes we're
okay with our areas where we miss God's mark, but
we're not where other people miss God's mark. And so
Jesus is calling us to a greater understanding of, uh,
of what it means to follow him and where we're
not just standing against the unrighteousness around us. We're doing

(09:43):
it in a way that's not self-righteous. So where we
have an understanding that, man, we're battling our our own
sins day in and day out. And when you're engaged
at that heart level, you start to live out this
beautiful faith where you're experiencing more impact and joy and
peace and hope in ways you didn't even know were possible,
just simply because you're dealing with your own sin. You know,

(10:06):
Paul says he was a chief of sinners. Uh, not
because he had a big sin scoreboard. It's just because
he was aware of and battling his own sin. And
I think most of us could say similar things when
we start to do that as well.

S1 (10:19):
Doctor Jed Coppinger is our guest. Thank you so much
for just pointing that out. Yeah. Our eyes quickly go
to the varsity sins, as you call them, but sometimes
it's those little sins that are the trap for us.
Maybe they're varsity sins in our own life that we're ignoring.
So I love that you're looking internally at some of
the things that we can be aware of in our
own lives. And and as we're wrapping up our time
with you, can you give us one more trap that

(10:40):
we need to avoid?

S2 (10:42):
Yeah. You know, as you as you work through the
message that Jesus gives there, it can just feel so overwhelming. Um,
because you think, oh, man, I mess up here and
I mess up there, and I mess up there and
and so you just think, man, what how do I
get out of this thing? And I think that it's
so important to remember Jesus's last, uh, mark of fake

(11:03):
Christianity or fake faith. He says it fails to receive
God's offer of mercy. At the very end of his message,
Jesus says that in spite of their great sin, he
still longed to gather them like a hen would gather
her brood. It's just a picture of gentleness and mercy,
and he wants us to know in the midst of
our sin he sees us at our very worst, but

(11:25):
he still gives us his very best that, like John
Newton said, uh, John Newton said years ago, our sins,
they are many, but his mercy is more. And and
that's something, you know, even in our in our world
we hear this word, we know this, but we still,
at a heart level, need to believe it more fully.
I was in a conversation not too long ago with

(11:45):
a lady that was at the back of our church, lingering,
and I could tell she wanted to talk and introduce
myself to her, and she wanted me to pray for her.
And I said, you know, as we talked about what
it was, she said that she had been in some
situations she wished she hadn't been in, and she felt
like God was calling her to come back to church
and to hear from his word and to take new steps,

(12:07):
and that her her boyfriend told her what she had done,
had made her too morally filthy and there was no
mercy for her. And so she asked me, is that true?
And I had the great privilege of being able to
tell her that although her sins are many, like all
of our sins are many, his mercy is more that
what he did on the cross was enough for her

(12:28):
with her story and her background, not just for other people,
but for her. And with her tears going down her face,
she was able to receive that mercy. And so I
would just say that that is that you got to
keep this in mind as you work through this, is
that Jesus doesn't come at us to condemn us, but
to heal us. And like a doctor, some things might

(12:49):
be painful as he's working on us, but it's for
a good purpose for us to experience the more that
he has for us.