Followed By Mercy

When We Follow Christ, Our Hearts Become Like His

• W. Austin Gardner

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What if following Jesus wasn’t about proving yourself, but simply learning from Him? In this heartfelt living room conversation with friends Chris, David, and Robert, we explore Jesus’ invitation to “come learn of me” and discover how it changes everything.

So many of us live under the exhausting pressure to earn God’s approval. But Jesus offers a radically different way—one where transformation flows from proximity, not performance. As David shares, “The longer we’re close to Jesus, the more we become like Him, meeker, more gentle, humble, accessible, kind, and loving.”

Chris reminds us that gentleness is not weakness, it’s strength under perfect control. That’s the kind of meekness Jesus models, and it radically shapes how we respond to the broken, the struggling, and even those who hurt us.

We unpack the truth that Jesus’ yoke is “not a weight, but a way.” When we walk with Him, He sets the pace, carries the load, and leads us into the life He designed—one marked by peace and joy, even in hardship.

If you’ve been worn out by religious performance or burdened by guilt, this conversation will breathe fresh hope into your walk with God. Discover how His grace changes the heart in ways rules never can.

In this episode:

 • Why gentleness is strength under control

 • How closeness to Jesus naturally shapes our character

 • The freedom of “come learn” versus “come earn”

 • How Jesus’ yoke sets our direction and carries our load

 • Why grace transforms where guilt only manipulates

 • Responding with meekness in threatening situations

 • Living with peace and joy no matter the circumstances

Join us as we discover together what it means to truly learn from the One who is meek and lowly in heart.


Chris Gardner, David Gardner, and Robert Canfield are discussing all this with me.

Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

Austin Gardner:

Well, I'm back with, followed by Mercy and I got the same friends from yesterday our sons Chris and David and Robert Canfield. We're just sitting around my living room and we're just chewing the fat and we're talking about come learn of me. And we left off yesterday with David talking about how, as you learn of him, you become sweeter. So, david, take that back up as you learn of him, you become sweeter.

David Gardner:

So, david, take that back up.

David Gardner:

No, just, I guess, reviewing that is that the longer we're closer to Jesus and the longer we live life with Jesus, I feel like his work in us is that he would make us more like him, which means that if we were more like him, that means that we're going to be meeker or more gentle, we're going to be more lowly, meaning humble, accessible, kind, loving.

David Gardner:

If we're going to be like Jesus, then we're going to treat sinners like Jesus treated sinners. And you know, what I said in the last podcast was that it surprises me when I hear people that are, you know, in ministry for so long and they've just become this deep and the minute they turn and, you know, take back any of the meanness, all of a sudden they become compromisers. All of a sudden they become, you know, people that don't have principles. They change, you know, and change is the nastiest word that they can think of is change, which the Lord should be changing us daily, and so I don't know where it comes from, but I do believe that the closer we are to Jesus, the more we're going to become like him, and if he describes his heart as meek and lowly, then that's what we should be.

Austin Gardner:

He didn't just describe it, he told you to come learn of that. Now, who are the sons of thunder? What Huh Was it? James and John, james and John, john, john, the Beloved Yep. You made the comment and so I'm going to just follow up with it and you can jump in and chat what you want on this. But he was a son of thunder. But by the time he writes 1 John, he says no one will know what effect is. He was a son of thunder, but by the time he writes 1 John, he says in fact it's in the book of John. He said if you want to know what real disciples are, they ain't thunder callers.

David Gardner:

Love one another.

Austin Gardner:

Huh.

David Gardner:

Love one another.

Austin Gardner:

He said, yeah, like Christ loved you. And he said that's a mark. People will know we're his disciples not by our doctrinal purity. Believe me, I believe in doctrinal purity. I'm not denying that. So did John and so did Jesus. But the book of John, he says they're going to know we're his disciples because we love. We hate that word, don't we? We hate that word. It sounds like a liberal. And then in 1 John he said you don't tell me you love God if you don't love your brother.

Robert Canfield:

They wouldn't say they hate that word, but they would always use another word to make sure that you don't just describe or characterize God as love, right? I mean, it's not how it goes. It's like I know God's the God of love, but he's also, but, but, but, but.

David Gardner:

You always have to counterbalance it. Well, I know there's grace, but we don't need to be using it. I know there's love, but man.

Austin Gardner:

I preached recently on grace in a church and as soon as I preached on Psalm 23, all I did was say what Psalm 23 said and as soon as I left, the pastor got up and preached a message and said we can go a little heavy on that grace, or something.

David Gardner:

Yeah, and yeah.

Austin Gardner:

I don't know what I was going to say. Well, I've got other things to say about that. You know, if we were to learn of him, how do you treat? Okay, you want to say something before I say this?

Robert Canfield:

Yeah, you keep going back and you say learn. But he said take my yoke and learn. So learning is not like sitting, like you said. It's not sitting and just thinking on Jesus. It's going out there and then begin to serving others and loving others. That's just for everyone, that's not just preachers too, that's everyone I mean. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, right.

Austin Gardner:

I mean, we're just— and even that was a lowly verse.

Robert Canfield:

Was it not?

Austin Gardner:

Because what's he say? He says I am God. Yeah, I'm not ashamed to be called God, but I lowered myself.

Robert Canfield:

And I got my eyes. He didn't put his eyes on him, he was putting his eyes on others. That's what Paul was telling him in Philippians, chapter 2. And so the whole learning thing is not just me sitting around meditating in some monastery you know what I mean, or whatever they call it, I don't know. It's taking that service, and going out to others and loving them.

Austin Gardner:

I was just going to say before you started talking, I think if you want to learn of him, how do you treat a broken person like a woman taken in adultery? If we caught a woman in adultery, we are going to bust her. Good, we're going to make sure she repents. How would you treat her? How would you treat somebody who's got weak faith and says help my unbelief. I believe, but help my unbelief. How do we treat them? How do we treat a guy who denied Jesus publicly? Go ahead, Chris, you wanted to say something.

Chris Gardner:

The thing that I believe we've got to truly understand is that when we use this word gentleness a synonym of that, or meekness a synonym, is the word gentle. And the word gentle, you know, almost feels like a synonym of compromiser. It's somebody that's always gentle. You know, that's not at all it. Gentleness is not weakness, it's strength under perfect control. Gent, it's strength under perfect control. Gentleness is strength under perfect control. And so we have to understand that.

Chris Gardner:

He said meek and lowly. And man, how many times do I not reflect that? That's just a powerful thought on that. And one of the things that I've written down here is the yoke of Jesus is the only load that light. And you know, one of one of the things that I have written here, down here is the yoke of Jesus is the only load that lightens while you carry it. It's the only load that lightens when you carry it. So you, when you take his yoke upon you, when you decide that you're going to live this way, you don't just get his help, you get his heart. That's such a powerful thought. You get his heart.

Austin Gardner:

That goes against what we're trying all of our lives to work on the externals.

Robert Canfield:

Yeah, and how do people that work on externals, how do they usually feel? How did you feel when you were under all those externals?

Austin Gardner:

I thought they were working on externals burdens you.

Robert Canfield:

You're always thinking one more thing Would you describe it as peaceful?

Austin Gardner:

No.

Robert Canfield:

Do you go to those people that preach the externals? I often couldn't.

Austin Gardner:

I couldn't preach a certain message, I couldn't pray. I'd go to pray and I'd say, well, wait a minute. I didn't knock on enough doors, I didn't share the gospel with enough people. Today, I'm not sure my giving matches up to what he wants, and it's always like I'm not quite where I'm supposed to be. And yet God loved us while we were yet sinners.

Chris Gardner:

Amen. Hebrews 12, 2, looking unto Jesus. He's the author, he's the finisher of our faith. So we've got to understand John 13,. I've given you an example. He basically says hey, follow me, do what I have done.

Chris Gardner:

1 John 2, verse 6, if you say that you abide in him, you've got to walk the way he walked. You've got to do the thing that he did. It's Philippians 2, 5, having the mind that is in Christ, having that mind in you. We have to understand that, if we and we love looking at Jesus and going, yeah, but look at how Jesus spoke with the Pharisees, you want sepulchers and you pastors as you, you like preaching that passage and thinking that that's the way to preach and the way to teach, can I just give you one thought? He's not preaching that to a congregation, he's preaching that to pastors. He's preaching that to the spiritual leaders of the day, because they were not listening, they were not growing in him, they were not having a relationship with him. They were achieving their goals, but they weren't teachable. They were doing their thing, but they weren't following him.

Chris Gardner:

He says learn of me. And, by the way, learning of him is not a class you graduate from. You don't have a graduation ceremony. You don't get your bachelor's degree, you don't get your master's degree, you don't get your PhD and go. I've arrived. Learning of him is a constant daily, every single day. Learning from him. I tell people all the time that I'm so thankful they didn't have YouTube back in the day when I started preaching, because I would be on every list of the worst kind of preaching you could ever imagine and I would actually like the video saying, yep, that was not good preaching. It wasn't good preaching. It wasn't good teaching, it wasn't good leading, because it wasn't done in the heart of Jesus.

Austin Gardner:

Well, I think, David, you had to say anything. You want to throw anything in there before I jump in on it?

David Gardner:

No, I think you know, speaking of meekness, and what Chris said about strength under perfect control is that you know, I started training jujitsu about two years ago and when I first walked in, you know, renan's a 47, 48-year-old man and his hands are some of the biggest hands I've ever seen and he's an expert. You know, he has a doctorate in knowing how to choke people and kill people. You know, and I've rolled with him. He's hurt me, he's choked me, he's, you know, tapped me out numerous times and it's almost like a terrifying experience when you first get started and there's nothing like seeing somebody that's an expert and has all the strength in the world to be able to to, you know, kill a grown man holding a little baby, you know, and and he's holding a baby and you're like man, I know what he could do with that, I know the power that he holds behind those hands and you know, one of the families at our gym takes their little baby and he's less than a year old and he's held by this man and you see the sweetest little teddy bear treating that little you know baby as if he were just a perfect little treasure and he takes care of him and he has all of this perfect strength and knowledge to hurt people.

David Gardner:

And then he turns around and holds this baby with meekness, with kindness, with gentleness. And it's just interesting because if we're in God's hands, he has all the power and strength to do whatever he wants. But he treats us like my teacher treats that little baby. It's just like we're the perfect little treasure.

Austin Gardner:

Exactly, that's beautiful.

Chris Gardner:

I would say I see this struggle in a lot of young people. They're always worried and concerned about the will of God. Got to find God's will, got to find God's will. I've got to find God's will. And if you want to find God's will John 15 is it Abide in Him, because what you find, the yoke, isn't a weight, it's a way. It's not a weight, it's a way. If I'm yoked to Jesus, he sets the direction, he sets the pace, he sets the pull, everything about me. All I've got to do is stay. I abide in Jesus, I'm with him. I'm in that yoke, I have decided to follow Jesus and so because of that, it's not a problem. I don't have to sit there and go oh, but it's God's will for my life. God's will is that I be with him, and God's will is that I be with him. And as I'm with him, he will show and he will open up and he will give us exactly what he wants to do, because he's living in us.

Austin Gardner:

Yes, it says I'm not alive. Christ is alive in me. Yeah.

Chris Gardner:

The pace of Jesus isn't slow. The pace of Jesus is sustainable. It's a lifetime. It's like you are going to follow Jesus. So I was. You know, if you would have asked me for my identity at the age of 18, I was a pastor, that's all I was. I was a pastor and then I became a missionary, and it took me a while to understand that my identity is not found in my geography, it's not found in what I say, it's not found in what I do. My identity is found in Christ. And so I came back to the States and I work with wealth management. Now you say, chris, that's not at all ministry stuff. No, you're totally wrong, because I am trying to abide. I'm not trying, I abide in Jesus. And as I abide in Jesus, he guides me, he leads me to exactly where I need to be. And so just understand that and understand. He wants you to have a lifelong relationship with him, and as you have that relationship, as you rejoice in that relationship, he will guide you to exactly where you need to be.

Austin Gardner:

Okay, just a few more things. Y'all can jump in anywhere you want here, but I think the atmosphere has to become grace, not guilt. Okay, just a few more things, and y'all can jump in anywhere you want here, but I think the atmosphere has to become grace, not guilt. And so when you learn of Jesus, it's about how good and sweet he's, lowly, he's meek. And then we mentioned, I guess yesterday in the podcast, when God described himself. When God says I'll tell you who I am, he's not stern and harsh, he's a mercy. In fact, as I did, I preached quite a bit I've done it with you here out of Psalm chapter 23. And it says it says I'm merciful. The next word is I'm gracious, and the Hebrew word behind gracious is a synonym for merciful. So basically, he says I'm merciful, I'm merciful. And then the next thing he says I'm full of mercy. And so I think, as a preacher and as a man of God, that's who I want to be. I just want to be like Jesus. So what do you? Do you forgive, go?

Chris Gardner:

ahead. I love doing this with different men that love Jesus, because there's like this, there's like so much to think about. But I believe that most preachers and most teachers and most Christians, if they were to give you a story of their life, they would have to put the title Come Earn From Me. But Jesus says Come Learn From Me. It's not something we do, we're not going to earn. Guilt says Do more, try harder. And grace says Walk with me, trust me. Guilt's a motivator for a moment, but grace is a teacher for a lifetime. So guilt's going to beat you up, but grace is going to build you up.

Chris Gardner:

And so Jesus didn't invite us to the weariness of a treadmill, he invited us to a table. Just the thought of come earn from me is what I grew up thinking. My entire life I preached come earn from me. Oh. Grew up thinking my entire life I preached come earn from me. Oh, if you'll do this, jesus will. God will come earn from me. But he didn't say that. He said come learn from me, sit at my table, spend time with me, love me. It's just a powerful thought.

Austin Gardner:

You know, when you talk about a relationship, your mother and I will be married 52 years and there have been no rules. We've never had rules. But you know, I probably learned more from her than anybody just by living together. Good night, I didn't know how to put the toilet seat up and down, but anyway, you know what? When you love a person and you walk with a person, you live with a person, you relax with a person. They change you. And that's what happens when you walk and live with Jesus. Go ahead, robert.

Robert Canfield:

You're saying the grace and I was thinking what David was talking about, the meekness and stuff like that.

Robert Canfield:

I think a lot resides in our mind, like the illustration that David used with his jujitsu professor how he probably knows in his mind that he can destroy a lot of people with his jujitsu professor. How he probably knows in his mind that he can destroy a lot of people, but then he realizes that the other people around him might not be at the same level and so he empathize or sympathizes with them. And that's where I think I think meekness might even come from. That Like even grace. We were told, we were taught, we were told to know the grace, and so it's like it's something that has to be a thought in our minds, not like something that I have to do, but just like thinking about man. When I deal with other people and you're like, that's when meekness needs to be pouring through, that's when I need to be displaying meekness, I need to think of that person as they're not my, they don't owe me anything. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't have that.

Robert Canfield:

That's God's child, that's the creation of God. That's why he says in James he's like he talks about like how, how from that fountain comes forth bitter and cursings and how other stuff. And he's like these things, these people are made in the image of God, they're made of that. I mean, that isn't that what God did when he made mankind. He made them as an image. And when you're speaking out against it, either you're elevating yourself as I think I'm jumping around to another chapter, I think it was chapter four either you become the judge, or when you judge somebody, or when you start cursing them, you're cursing something that God put divine image stamp on and you don't think about that.

Robert Canfield:

We don't think about that. We think when someone hurts us, we think when someone does this man, we have every right to get right. You know what I mean. We can get back because either we're the judge or that person's less than you know what I mean and we got to make sure other people know. But that's not what a meek person does, because a meek person realizes who they are and they realize who everyone else is and they treat them of gentleness and kindness and just everywhere we go. And that's what I should make a Christian different in society. It doesn't matter what title you carry, whether you're a garbage collector or whatever I mean. You are the meek person. You are loved by the Creator, god, and he loves everyone else too, and so we ought to teach and be kind and gentle with everyone else.

Austin Gardner:

You know, what is really funny about that is, when anybody hurts me, I want God to hurt them, and so my attitude is God hurt, go ahead, john. What you said in the. And so my attitude is God hurt, go ahead what?

Robert Canfield:

you said the church on Wednesday night. They were talking about vengeance and that was out of Romans, chapter 12. The scripture says be not overcome of evil. Be not overcome of evil. He tells us to let God have vengeance. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. But he tells us to feed them and if they're thirsty, give them something. And then at the end he says this Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And what he's saying is don't be conquered by evil.

Austin Gardner:

I think what the beautiful thing is. I wanted God to punish them. It's like telling your mom and dad I need you to beat up my brother because you hurt me. Parents, don't do that. God loves the person who hurt me as much as he loves me, and he's going to make everything right. But when he makes everything right, all he's going to do is change us. It doesn't mean he's going to go kill them. I want God to break their leg and God's like don't be ridiculous, I love them.

Robert Canfield:

But when that happens in our life, I feel like that's being overcome with evil. We're being conquered by evil in that moment, but instead of saying God, I want you to, we're supposed to bless them, we're supposed to pray for them.

Austin Gardner:

That's right. Bless them and not curse them.

Robert Canfield:

So here's a question why do you bless them and not curse them? Why do you pray for them? Because I saw Jesus. Do you curse or not curse them? Why do you pray for them? Because I saw jesus do it and I've learned of him. Because mom and daddy want you to hug and make up because that's what daddy did with everybody and that's how we live and I we don't think that. We just think, oh, I gotta do better, I gotta do better, I gotta think that's right it is a sorry all right anybody else I I always love reading these passages, thinking about the.

Chris Gardner:

Have you if you've ever been in a church service where the Holy Spirit uses something that somebody says and it grabs a hold of you and doesn't do anything to your neighbor because it was just hit towards you? And the same way, I love thinking about what these people are hearing when they're hearing this passage and the audience that Jesus was speaking to. They were crushed by religious performance guilt. They were crushed by performance, religious performance guilt. And it was the endless rules of the Pharisees. It wasn't just the rules of the Old Testament, it was everything that they could ever add to it. And just trying to, you know, you got to protect yourself and protect yourself. And so he kept on going on and on. Guilt was the fuel, weariness was the result. Guilt was the fuel and weariness was the result.

Chris Gardner:

Jesus offers rest, not by removing responsibility, but by replacing the source of motivation. He's not sitting there going, hey, go live any way, you want to do whatever you want to. What he's saying is if you're close to me, you won't, you can't, you will do what you need to do, but you're doing it with a whole different reason to do that. And here's a couple of things to think through. We often try to use guilt to grow people, but I encourage you to find one time when Jesus was trying to grow people that used guilt. Guilt is loud, grace is steady. You don't graduate from grace. It's not the entry point to being saved. It is the entire path, day one to the last day. The last breath that I breathe here on earth. It should be bathed in grace in everything that we do.

Austin Gardner:

David, do you want to finish up anything? Do you want to add anything, Robert, before we close out today's podcast?

Robert Canfield:

Well, I guess, if a person's out there and they find themselves that they're not living a life of peace and if they're not joyous, I mean they just need to meet Jesus. And when you meet Jesus, that comes the peace and that comes the joy. That's one thing that's always stuck out to me as I read through the book of Acts is that those guys, those jokers, were always happy. I mean, they could suffer persecution, they could be beaten, and they're like we got to be beat for his name. Isn't that wonderful. I mean, everywhere they were going, there was going from joy to joy, rejoicing, it seems like, and so I think that's the way Christian life should be lived.

Chris Gardner:

I would close by saying guilt leads to burnout and rebellion. Grace leads to transformation because it changes the heart, not the habits, and so guilt will change your habits, but grace changes your heart. And so, just, man, what a beautiful what I would encourage you to ask yourself today how are you moving from grace, from guilt, to grace right now? How are you?

David Gardner:

moving from the guilt to grace right now. I think probably one of the reasons that we can't act meek is because we don't. We're not very rooted in our identity, and so when we, the reason we need meekness is only found under circumstances where it's needed, right. So meekness isn't just like a neutral thing, it's like I've got, I'm going to be meek in certain situations where I'm needed to be meeker. That's how I'm required to respond. And you know, I think one of the reasons that we respond poorly is because when meekness is required, we feel threatened. We feel like our identity is threatened, like our manhood is threatened. When somebody is you know, maybe you know attacking in our direction or is saying things in our direction, and we don't agree or we don't like it, we don't want it, then the way that we respond is not in humbleness, it's not in meekness, it's in our, I guess, male instinct of self-defense, of self-preservation, and so we respond that way, whereas when we are rooted in our identity, when we know who we are, then we can relax and let God take care of things, because my humility, my servanthood, my meekness does not rob me of my identity, it doesn't rob me of my position.

David Gardner:

You know, in Philippians, chapter 2, it says that you know, jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but he, he took off of himself, he took on the form of a servant. He was obedient to the death death of the cross but that never took away from his position and never took away from his identity. His identity was rooted in the Father, with the Father, and he and the Father were one, and so he could serve without his identity being threatened. He could serve, he could be meek, he could be lowly, without any of these things being threatened because of who he was. I think the more that we're secure in our identity, I think the less threats we face, the less times we see anything, any action toward us, as a threat and we can put it in the Lord's hands.

Austin Gardner:

All right Gets is wonderful. I want to thank all three of you. I think you add a great deal to the podcast. I think it's been wonderful, and I'd like to see us do this again if y'all ever are able to find the time to do it. I know you're all busy men. Robert is leading a ministry called Taking the Light, and I'll try to put some information about that, and Chris is in wealth management, the pastor of a that, and Chris is in wealth management, the pastor of a church, and David is a missionary in Peru, and so it's been a blessing to be with you, and I pray that you are growing and blessed by this, and so I invite you to invite others to listen to the podcast. Share it if you would, if it's a blessing. Thank you very much. You guys want to say anything before I close our out? All right, so I love all of you. Thank God, we are followed by mercy.

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