The one thing a church cannot afford to lose is the gospel. We can lose buildings, money, programs, even pastors, but we cannot lose the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation. It is the message of Christ. It is the truth that sets sinners free. Everything depends on the gospel.

Paul wrote to believers in Galatia who were in danger of losing it. Out of the gate, he writes, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Gal. 1:6). Paul was shocked. The Galatians were in the process of trading the true gospel for a false one. They hadn’t completely abandoned the gospel, but they were tolerating a distortion of it, and Paul knew where that road would lead.

That’s why Galatians 5:1 captures the burden of the entire letter: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Christ had set them free, but they were in danger of going back into bondage. The bondage Paul has in mind is legalism—the attempt to gain or maintain acceptance with God through human effort, rule-keeping, and religious performance. It trades grace for works and freedom for slavery.

In Galatia, that legalism came through the Judaizers. These men insisted that Gentile believers needed more than faith in Christ. They also needed adherence to Jewish law. Jesus was necessary, but Jesus alone was insufficient. Their equation was essentially: Jesus plus Jewish law equals salvation.

Paul says, “Stand firm.” Don’t surrender the gospel that set you free. Don’t add anything to Christ. Don’t exchange grace for works and freedom for bondage. We’ve summarized Galatians this way throughout our study: We are set free by Christ to live free in Christ. And if we are going to live free in Christ, we must stand firm in the gospel. Here’s how the first two chapters of Galatians tell us to do that.

Stand firm in the authority of the gospel.

The Judaizers attacked Paul by questioning the source of his gospel. So Paul confronts that accusation directly:

“For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Galatians 1:11–12

Paul’s point is simple: his gospel did not come from man. It came from Christ.  He reminds the Galatians of his former life. Paul had violently persecuted the church and tried to destroy it. Then Christ intervened. The persecutor became a preacher. The man who once tried to destroy the faith was now proclaiming it.

And Paul makes clear that he didn’t receive this message from the apostles in Jerusalem. He didn’t immediately go to them for instruction. Christ had revealed the gospel to him. Only three years later did he go to Jerusalem and meet Peter. Meaning, Paul’s authority didn’t ultimately rest on another apostle, a church, or a religious institution. His gospel came from Jesus Christ. And the gospel itself proved its power in Paul’s life. Galatians 1:23 says people were saying, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” That kind of transformation is the work of God.

So stand firm in the authority of the gospel. The gospel is God’s message. We received it from Him, and we are responsible to preserve it faithfully. We don’t have the authority to revise it, soften it, add to it, or reshape it according to what people want to hear. The gospel belongs to God. Stand firm in it.

Stand firm in the sufficiency of the gospel.

In chapter 2, Paul eventually goes to Jerusalem and meets with the leaders of the church. And he brings Titus with him. Titus was Gentile, which is important. He had believed the gospel, but he had never become a Jew. He hadn’t been circumcised. So Titus became a living test case: Is Jesus enough, or does a Gentile need something more? Paul says:

“Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.”

Galatians 2:4–5

These false brothers, who we know as the Judaziers, wanted to add Jewish requirements to faith in Christ. Their message was essentially, “Jesus is necessary, but Jesus is not enough. Titus also needs circumcision. He also needs the law.”

And Paul would not give them an inch. “We did not yield in submission even for a moment.” I love that. Something much bigger than Titus was at stake here. Paul says it was “so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” If Titus needed something in addition to Christ, then the gospel was insufficient. But if Christ had truly saved Titus, nothing needed to be added.

So Paul stood firm. And because Paul and others stood firm, the same gospel was preserved and passed down. I think about that personally. I received the gospel from my mother. She received it from a neighbor who saw her struggling and came alongside her much like Jesus met the woman at the well. She gave my mother the gospel, and my mother gave that same gospel to me. And now I stand here in the same freedom she experienced.

There is a chain of faithful people behind every one of us who received the gospel and passed it on. They didn’t improve it. They didn’t add to it. They trusted that Jesus was enough. So stand firm in the sufficiency of the gospel. Christ is enough. Don’t add anything to Him.

Stand firm in the unity of the gospel.

When Paul met with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, they recognized that Paul was preaching the same gospel they were preaching. Paul says that James, Peter, and John “perceived the grace that was given to me, and they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised” (Gal. 2:9). The “right hand of fellowship” was a gesture of agreement. It said, “We are together. We believe the same gospel. We are serving the same Christ.”

Their ministries were different. Paul was sent primarily to the Gentiles, while Peter was sent primarily to the Jews. Different people. Different places. Different ministries. But one gospel. The Judaizers were claiming that Paul’s gospel was somehow defective or incomplete. Yet when Paul stood before the recognized leaders in Jerusalem, they didn’t correct his gospel or add anything to it. They affirmed it.

There is something strengthening about locking arms with believers who stand on the same gospel. We will not agree about everything. Christians can disagree about spiritual gifts, church government, baptism, worship practices, missions strategy, and many other things. Some of those disagreements are important. But there is a deeper unity that comes from believing the same good news about Jesus Christ.

We believe that sinners are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That is where we stand together. And when voices around us begin offering a different message, we need other believers standing beside us saying, “Stay here. This is the gospel. Jesus is enough.” So stand firm in the unity of the gospel. Different people. Different ministries. One gospel.

Stand firm in the integrity of the gospel.

Sometimes standing firm means helping another believer get back in step with the gospel. That is what happens next. Paul sees Peter acting hypocritically. Peter had been eating freely with Gentile believers, enjoying the fellowship that Christ had made possible. But when certain Jewish men arrived, Peter became afraid and withdrew from the Gentiles.

He knew better. Peter knew the gospel. He believed the gospel. He knew that Christ had torn down the barriers that once separated Jew and Gentile. But fear caused him to act contrary to what he believed. So Paul confronted him publicly:

“But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’.”

Galatians 2:14

I love the way Paul says it: “their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel.” Peter believed the right gospel, but for a moment he lived as though a different gospel were true. His actions were saying that Gentile believers were somehow less acceptable unless they became more Jewish. He was communicating with his behavior what he would never have preached with his mouth.

We can distort the gospel by what we teach, but we can also contradict the gospel by how we live.

We can distort the gospel by what we teach, but we can also contradict the gospel by how we live. If we preach grace but treat people according to their performance, we are out of step with the gospel. If we preach that Christ makes us one but divide ourselves according to race, class, background, or preference, we are out of step with the gospel. If we preach that Christ transforms lives while willingly living like nothing has changed, we are out of step with the gospel. So stand firm in the integrity of the gospel. Believe the gospel, and live in step with what you believe.

Stand firm in the grace of the gospel.

One last point. In Galatians 2:15–21, Paul brings everything together by stating plainly the gospel he has been defending. He says:

“We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.”

Galatians 2:16

We are justified by faith in Christ, not by works of the law. To be justified means to be declared righteous before God. And Paul says that happens through faith in Jesus Christ. You cannot earn it. You cannot achieve it. You cannot work your way into it.

The Judaizers were adding works of the law to Christ. Although we don’t bump into Judaizers much today, we do, however, come across the Judaizer kind. They add one thing or another Christ so that Christ is necessary, but not enough. You need to go to a certain place. Join the right church. Say the right words. Pray in the right way. Perform the right rituals. Have the right spiritual experience. Do something more so that God will finally accept you. But the moment we make something else necessary for our justification, we have distorted the gospel and returned to slavery.

The gospel is good news because it is a gospel of grace. Grace is God’s undeserved favor freely given to sinners through Jesus Christ. Christ lived the righteous life we could not live, died for our sins, was buried, and rose again. And everyone who turns to Him and trusts in Him is justified before God. That is why Paul closes the chapter by saying:

“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

Galatians 2:21

If we could make ourselves right with God, we would not need the cross. But we cannot. So Christ did for us what we could never do for ourselves. Stand firm in the grace of the gospel. Trust Christ completely. Grace is enough.

There you have it—five ways to stand firm in the gospel. Trust in the authority and sufficiency of the gospel. Lean into the unity of the gospel. Keep the integrity of the gospel. And trust in the grace of the gospel.