The Defense of the Gospel – Galatians
The Defense of the Gospel
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
October 4, 2026 | Series: Galatians
INTRODUCTION
Been thinking about how controversial the gospel is in America today. Believing God’s Word and proclaiming salvation in Jesus alone isn’t just edgy… many literally call it hate speech.
Can you feel the silent fear threatening the church?
It’s the fear of proclaiming Christ boldly. We see the backlash.
Our thoughts whisper:
What will others think?
How will they react?
What will it cost me?
Those feelings are real… and they’ve accompanied believers since the inception of the church…
Journey with me to communist China…
Just eight years ago, on December 9, 2018, police in Chengdu, China, began arresting members of Early Rain Covenant Church. More than one hundred believers were taken into custody—including their pastor, Wang Yi, and his wife.
What led to these arrests?
Our brothers and sisters in this local church were arrested because they would not stop proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Before the arrests, the state had already fired warning shots… restricting their gatherings and even shutting the church down. Despite the threats and opposition, Pastor Wang resolved he would obey Christ—even if it cost him his freedom.
How do we know he weighed that cost before his arrest?
Months before he was arrested, Pastor Wang wrote a declaration… and instructed his church to publish it if he was detained for more than forty-eight hours.
In his declaration, he affirmed his allegiance to Christ.
Before they ever came for him, he had already made up his mind.
In December 2019, a year later, he was sentenced to nine years in prison. Nine years!
Reports say that’s the longest sentence given to a house-church pastor in a decade.
Nine years…
Separated from his wife; from his son; from the church he loved. Imagine losing all that. Put yourself in his shoes for a moment.
But here’s what gets me. In Wang’s declaration, he spoke about the people who would imprison and interrogate him. He said he believed they would one day answer to Christ.
And that conviction didn’t move his heart towards vengeance… it moved his heart to compassion and concern for their eternal souls.
He wrote:
“Pray that the Lord would use me, that he would grant me patience and wisdom, that I might take the gospel to them.”
To THEM. To the people who were taking away his freedom.
Doesn’t that sound like something straight out of a passage from Paul?
Paul’s gospel conviction was so rooted that he was virtually untouchable by those who opposed the gospel!
- Kill me? Thank you! To die is gain! I’ll be with my Lord!
- Keep me alive? To live is Christ! I’ll keep sharing His gospel!
- Put me in prison? I’ll convert your guards!
- Beat me? I’ll glory that I was counted worthy to bear His stripes.
Paul lived with that edge.
Christ had so transformed his life that pleasing God mattered more to him than anything people could threaten to take away.
Pastor Wang has that same edge.
Nearly eight years later, Pastor Wang is still in prison. They’ve limited his physical freedom; but we know his declaration and resolve… and we have every reason to believe he is still making Christ known.
This is like a modern-day gospel hero, church.
Pastor Wang’s story stirs me.
It makes me ask, “Am I ready to stand for Christ like that?”
“What does it take?”
This morning, we’ll find out as we continue in Galatians.
Today, we’ll consider Paul’s convictions and faith that produced his uncompromising defense of the gospel… convictions that Pastor Wang understood and embraced.
Buckle up!
You’re about to be shaken by the words of a man who minced no words, who boldly stood against any threat, and never backed down from a public relations nightmare to defend the gospel.
Let’s get into it…
BODY
Remember those troublemaking Judaizers? We introduced them last week. They were leading the churches in the region of Galatia to abandon the gospel of grace that Paul had proclaimed to them.
Their FALSE GOSPEL claim was…
FAITH IN JESUS + Circumcision / Jewish Law = SALVATION
Church, that’s not the gospel!
And neither is…
There are multiple ways to God.
And neither is…
All religions basically worship the same God.
And neither is…
If I’m basically a good person, I’ll go to heaven.
Those are false gospels!
The gospel is…
FAITH IN JESUS + NOTHING = SALVATION
The churches in Galatia – now modern-day Turkey – had heard the gospel of grace; but they were now being led away by some other gospel…
And that blew Paul’s mind. So, he wrote this letter in defense of the gospel. We’ll pick up in…
Galatians 1:6
6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,
Paul accused the church of being deserters to the gospel of Jesus Christ for a different gospel.
He was astonished by their disloyalty.
He was surprised and bewildered by their abandonment.
Have you ever felt the shock of betrayal before?
- Perhaps the betrayal of a spouse?
- Or the betrayal between a child and a parent?
- Or the betrayal of a pastor to his own preaching?
Paul was shocked by the way these churches had betrayed Jesus by abandoning His gospel for some other gospel.
Then, in the next three verses, Paul puts those troublesome Judaizers, those false teachers, right in the crosshairs.
And he did not mince his words…
7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
He says it twice!
It’s a strong and brutal blow.
He curses these false teachers, not with vile, dirty words, but with prophetic intensity.
The Greek word for accursed is “anathema”. It means…
- To be condemned to destruction
- To be cut off from the blessing of God
- To be placed under divine judgment
- To be damned
Those who distort the gospel of grace… let them be accursed;
let them experience God’s divine judgment; let them be anathema.
Why such intensity?
Because the eternal souls of people are on the line!
Paul’s logic is simple:
If you preach a gospel that cannot save, you are leading people to eternal destruction. Therefore, you stand under the judgment of God.
Paul’s warning doesn’t come from hate; it comes from love, deep concern, and compassion for those who are perishing.
The strongest language in Scripture is reserved for those who distort the message that saves!
- Jesus did it with the Pharisees
- John did it with false prophets
- Jude did it with corrupt teachers
- And Paul stands in that same tradition
If a doctor knowingly gives patients a fake cancer treatment, telling them it will cure them, that doctor is not just “wrong”—he’s dangerous.
He’s giving people false hope that leads to real death.
Paul sees false gospel teachers the same way.
A false gospel is not a minor error…
IT’S SPIRITUAL MALPRACTICE.
And to ANYONE who practices it,
Paul says, “Anathema! Let them be accursed!”
And in that curse, he shows no partiality, even toward himself!
- If we preach another gospel, let us be accursed.
- If an angel preaches another gospel, let him be accursed.
No messenger is greater than the gospel!
And many hated Paul for his bold defense.
In our nation today, anyone who truly stands for the gospel of Jesus Christ is being accused of hate speech.
In 2017, Russell Vought, the nominee for Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, was questioned during a Senate confirmation hearing about his faith that Jesus alone can save and those who reject Christ stand condemned.
That’s not radical, church… that’s basic Christianity!
When questioned, Vought affirmed his faith in the gospel as the only means by which anyone can be saved.
Senator Bernie Sanders called his statement “hateful” and Islamophobic. Then, several organizations urged the Senate to reject him, arguing that those beliefs disqualified him from public office.
Church, all Vought did was express his faith that Jesus alone can save.
- If you preach Jesus is the only way to heaven, it’s considered hate speech.
- If, in compassion and love, you preach all Muslims have been deceived by Satan, are lost in their sins, are destined for hell apart from the saving knowledge of Christ, it’s hate speech.
- If you preach same sex marriage is wrong, and that exalting yourself above God will leave you condemned, it’s hate speech.
The world condemns the only gospel by which it can be saved.
When Paul defended the gospel, it wasn’t hate speech… it flowed from love. He was more concerned about the eternal souls of people than about what his opponents might think.
Together Church, this is the kind of disciple we want to become!
Disciples like Paul. Like Pastor Wang. Disciples more concerned with the gospel and eternal souls than with the approval of people.
How did Paul become this kind of disciple of Jesus?
Pastor Wang knew.
Paul knew.
What do we need to know to be like them?
Here it is…
When it came to the gospel, Paul didn’t care about what people thought! He only cared about what God thought. He says it like this…
10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
That’s kind of a funny statement!
Paul’s saying, “Hey! If I wanted to please people, I should have remained a Pharisee!”
Before Paul was converted, he was climbing the ranks among the Jewish elite… and he had the approval of men!
But by the time Paul wrote this letter, he had been verbally and physically assaulted by the Jews on multiple occasions for his bold defense of the gospel.
But no amount of opposition could convince Paul to back down or to stop defending and preaching Jesus’ gospel!
Can we just acknowledge how hard it can be to be disliked and criticized by others? But Paul never wavered.
What was his secret?
When it came to his confidence in the gospel, Paul literally couldn’t care less about what other people thought.
And that’s the secret sauce.
To be like Paul, we must care more about what God thinks… not what people think. Paul had it settled.
Pastor Wang had it settled, too.
In his declaration, he wrote…
“The Bible teaches us that, in all matters relating to the gospel and human conscience, we must obey God and not men.”
Boom.
Like Paul, he knew…
The Gospel and its Worth > The Approval of Man
There are some things I might change in my life to get along better or not create a fight. But the defense and proclamation of the gospel? Not one of those things.
Threats
Prison
Persecution
Contempt
Doesn’t matter.
To be disciples of Jesus with this kind of boldness for the gospel, we must be like them… we must be so convinced of the gospel and its supreme worth that we value it more than the approval and praise of man.
To be clear, this includes…
- Your spouse
- Your parents
- Your children
- Your best friend
- Your church
- Your boss at work
- Social pressures and social media
Everyone. No respecter of persons.
Hey, this is not easy.
Who in this room loves being rejected by others?
Who enjoys being publicly vilified?
As human beings we crave human acceptance and experience emotional pain when we are vilified or falsely accused.
We’re wired to find our place of belonging.
And I just want to make it clear…
That desire isn’t sinful! It’s not the result of the fall of man. We have this desire because we are made in God’s image and share His nature for relationship.
But because of sin and our fallen condition, people have become enemies of God and have traded the approval of God for the approval of sinful man.
And that’s where the examples of Paul and Pastor Wang call us up:
- You can’t chase Christ and applause at the same time
- You can’t serve the Savior and seek the spotlight
- You can’t walk in the spirit and live for human approval
- You can’t carry the cross and crave the crowd
Paul had settled this issue in his heart. Have you?
Will you stand for the truth of the gospel even if it means standing alone? Sometimes we want to, but we’re not sure how.
How do you do that? What needs to happen?
Paul tells us why he was this way…
11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. 12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
What do you need if you’re going to stand boldly for Christ?
You need a revelation from Jesus that changes your life!
Paul said he received the gospel through a revelation from Christ that transformed him and changed his life.
If Jesus has already changed your life by showing you your need for the gospel, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
The power we need doesn’t come from us; it comes from God!
If you haven’t experienced this change, God wants you to.
He wants you to know His gospel and be saved.
Not by your works or power, but by belief in the work of Jesus Christ. By grace!
God is ready to transform you. He did it for Paul, and He can do it for you! The reason Paul stood so boldly is because Jesus had revealed His gospel to him and changed him.
In fact, that’s what comes next in the text…
After sharing about the revelation he had received, Paul tells his story about how the revelation of the gospel changed him. We heard that story read… it carries through the rest of chapter 1 and into chapter 2.
Before Jesus revealed Himself to Paul, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. His admission is right in the text. Paul says…
“I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.”
And, honestly…. his persecution of the church was getting him a lot of praise from people in the groups he ran with! That’s what he says in the next verse…
“I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people…”
But then comes the turn. Look at what he says in 15–16…
“But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace…”
There it is again… GRACE!
Before the revelation, Paul was trying to destroy the church.
Then, God called him by His grace…
And that changed everything!
- Paul went from persecutor to preacher
- From destroying the church to defending the church
- From hunting Christians to helping Christians
- From breathing threats to breathing grace
The man who tried to silence the gospel
became the man God used to spread it!
The man who persecuted the church
became the man who fought to establish and preserve it!
What a transformation!
Paul’s transformation by the gospel of grace would be more radical than President Xi becoming a leading defender of Christian churches and religious freedom in communist China.
It’s MORE radical because it’s not just a political or human level change, it’s a spiritual change!
Paul’s transformation was a supernatural miracle!
There is always hope because of the gospel of grace!
In chapter 2, Paul continues the story:
“Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem…”
Okay, pause right there. Fourteen years!
Have you ever noticed that before? Paul’s ministry didn’t begin with his first missionary journey.
Long before the church in Antioch sent Paul and Barnabas out, Paul was already proclaiming Christ—in Damascus, Arabia, Jerusalem, Syria and Cilicia, and then alongside Barnabas in Antioch.
There’s a lesson here…
Paul wasn’t chasing a title.
He wasn’t waiting for recognition.
He wasn’t trying to build a ministry career.
He had been changed by Jesus—and changed people live for Jesus.
We say this all the time: discipleship is not just something we do. It is who we are. Paul embodied that.
Fourteen years in relative obscurity? Fine.
Hard places? Fine.
No applause? Fine.
Paul wasn’t proclaiming Christ because of what it might do for Paul.
He proclaimed Christ because Christ had changed him.
So, if preaching the gospel made him popular—fine.
If preaching the gospel made him enemy number one—he still wasn’t moving.
It wasn’t about what people thought.
It was about preserving and proclaiming the gospel that has the power to save.
And when Paul finally went to Jerusalem, that conviction was about to be tested.
Because he brought somebody with him… Titus.
2:1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.
We’re about to get some answers about how resolute Paul was in his defense of the gospel. The presence of Titus draws it out.
Titus is one of Paul’s chief companions. But Titus wasn’t a Jew… he was a Gentile. He believed in Jesus, but he had never been circumcised.
Now Paul and Titus arrive together in Jerusalem… the hotbed of Jewish activity. The early church had a decision to make…
Was faith in Christ enough? Or did Titus need something more?
Some false brothers concluded it wasn’t enough. They pressured Paul to circumcise Titus!
But what might be a pressure test for some of us didn’t faze Paul in the slightest… Paul wouldn’t yield an inch. Listen to him recount this trip to Jerusalem…
Galatians 2:2–5
2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.
4 And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage),
5 to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.
Circumcise Titus?
Appease the Judaizers?
Maybe it’s a good idea, right? Everyone just getting along?
Wrong!
Paul would not compromise the gospel of grace!
He said, “We wouldn’t yield submission for even one hour.”
This wasn’t about preferences; it was about the defense of the gospel.
Making circumcision a requirement would tell Titus—and every Gentile believer—that the work of Jesus wasn’t enough.
Not a chance. The gospel Paul received is the only gospel he would proclaim: Faith in Jesus + NOTHING = SALVATION.
And Paul wasn’t going to change his message based on who was in the room; even if those in the room were the other apostles!
Hit play on the rest of Paul’s story…
Galatians 2:6-9
6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.
7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised
8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles),
9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
Paul wasn’t interested in impressing influential people, he was concerned about presenting the gospel he had received from Christ.
The gospel that had changed his life.
His trip to Jerusalem wasn’t about gaining support, it was about the defense of the gospel.
So what happened when the gospel Paul was preaching to the Gentiles was laid before the other apostles in Jerusalem?
Paul says it: they extended the right hand of fellowship to him.
That was more than a handshake.
It was agreement.
Recognition.
Partnership.
They recognized that Paul was preaching the same gospel they were preaching.
And notice this…
The other apostles added nothing to Paul’s gospel message because nothing needed to be added.
Their approval didn’t make the gospel true.
They recognized that it was true.
Faith in Jesus + NOTHING = salvation.
That’s the gospel Paul defended.
And that’s the gospel we must never surrender.
CONCLUSION
That’s the text. How do we apply it?
I’m not going to pull any punches here.
The leading ideology that opposes the gospel of Jesus Christ in our world today is Islam.
Islam is a false religion that Satan is using to lead many people astray.
We’re in Galatians, right?
Learning about Paul’s defense of the gospel in that region, right?
Consider this…
- The region of Galatia is modern-day Turkey. An area that was once the heartland of Christianity is now 98% Muslim.
- Egypt was once overwhelmingly Christian. Today, about 90% of the country is Muslim.
- Islam is the fastest-growing major religion globally. From 2010 to 2020, the Muslim population grew about 21%, from 1.7 billion to 2.0 billion, roughly twice the growth rate of the rest of the world.
- Europe is becoming less Christian while its Muslim population is growing. Christianity fell from about 75% to 67% of Europe between 2010 and 2020, while Muslims grew to about 6%. France and the United Kingdom even lost their Christian majorities during that decade.
The list really does go on.
What should we think when we hear these reports?
What should we feel in the deepest parts of our being?
Learn the lesson of Pastor Wang…
“Pray that the Lord would use me, that he would grant me patience and wisdom, that I might take the gospel to them.”
There’s no place for fear in the church of Jesus Christ!
There’s no place for hate.
There’s no place for retaliation.
This isn’t “us and them,” church.
We are talking about the eternal souls of people.
It doesn’t matter what false gospel they believe.
Any false gospel is a threat to the souls of people.
If we’re going to be disciples of Jesus who defend and proclaim the gospel like the Apostle Paul, then we’re going to have to be like him, and like Pastor Wang, and like millions of our brothers and sisters persecuted for the faith before us…
We’re going to have to pre-decide that the approval of God matters more than the approval of man.
We cannot be untouchable until we do.
When we settle that, we can be bold with the gospel.
INVITATION
The invitation is simple today…
Has Jesus revealed Himself to you in a way that has transformed your life?
If He has, will you settle this right now?
Here’s the prayer…
Lord Jesus
I believe your gospel
Thank you for saving me
I will defend and proclaim Your gospel no matter the cost
INVITATION LOST
If you’re not sure Jesus has saved you, He wants to reveal Himself to you and show you your need for Him.
He does not desire that any would perish but that all would come to repentance.
Like Paul, if you will turn your heart to Jesus, He will help you see the truth of His gospel and transform your life.