Followed By Mercy
The Followed By Mercy Podcast
Real Grace, Honest Hope
You might notice a new name and a fresh look, but the heart behind this podcast is the same. After years as the World Evangelism Podcast, I sensed God leading me to a deeper, more personal path centered on His relentless mercy and the kind of honest hope that can reach into every hurting place. That’s why this show is now called Followed By Mercy Podcast. The format may shift, and the tone may be a bit more personal, but my mission hasn’t changed: I still believe the world desperately needs to hear the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. You are welcome here if you’ve been with me from the beginning or just found us now.
What if God’s love is more personal, stubborn, and relentless than you ever imagined?
Welcome to The Followed By Mercy Podcast, where we get honest about pain, hope, and the kind of grace that finds you right where you are, five days a week. This isn’t about religious performance or church routines. It’s for anyone who’s ever felt worn out, unseen, or unsure if they belong in the story of God’s love. Every conversation is rooted in this reality: God loves you right now, just as you are, and He isn’t giving up on you.
Here’s what you’ll find in every episode:
Experience God’s Relentless Love
Every show starts by reminding you that the Shepherd knows your name, cares about your story, and isn’t offended by your failures or questions. This is personal—it’s about God’s unwavering affection for you.
Find Your Place in His Heart
Once you grasp how fiercely you’re loved, sharing that love with others doesn’t feel forced. It becomes the most natural thing in the world. Real grace overflows.
Prayer That Changes You
We pray together—not just for the world “out there,” but for the battles and hopes you’re carrying right now. These prayers are honest, rooted in Scripture, and meant for hearts that need a gentle touch from the Shepherd.
Discover Your Unique Role
Whether you’re called to go, give, serve, or show kindness in your corner of the world, God’s mercy meets you where you are. You’re not just a bystander. You are His beloved, invited into the story He’s writing.
When life knocks the wind out of you, this is a place to catch your breath. You’ll hear the encouragement that meets you on your hardest days, and your honest questions will be welcomed. No pretending, no heavy-handed advice—just the reminder that your Shepherd is right there with you, walking every step with you, even when you feel like giving up.
Why does this matter? Because some days, it feels like nobody sees you or cares what you’re going through. But the truth is, you have a Shepherd who never takes His eyes off you, lets you slip through the cracks, and never gives up on you. That kind of love can put you back on your feet, and it might be the hope someone else is waiting to see in you, too.
If you’re longing for more than just religious talk—if you want to know you’re not alone and that God’s mercy is following you all the way home, you’re in the right place. Whether you listen in the car, on a walk, or in a quiet moment, let every episode remind you: God’s mercy is after you right now, ready to bring real grace and honest hope.
Subscribe today and join a community to discover what happens when loved people become loving people. The journey’s just beginning, and there’s a place for you here.
Followed By Mercy
Galatians: A Clear Call To Freedom From Legalism
Freedom sounds different when you've been living on a treadmill. Paul shouts across the centuries to stop trying to earn what Jesus already gave. If performance-based religion has left you tired, ashamed, or numb, this conversation is a deep breath of grace.
You'll hear why the law is a mirror that can show the dirt but never wash it off, and how the cross changes the verb tense of your story, delivered, redeemed, accepted, no first-class for rule keepers and coach for sinners; one table, one Savior, one grace.
From the curse of striving to the relief of adoption, we unpack what it means to live as someone loved, not someone auditioning. That freedom breaks the need to please people, quiets the inner scorekeeper, and anchors identity in union with Christ: I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live. Expect clear takeaways you can practice today—resting instead of proving, trusting instead of performing, enjoying the Shepherd who leads while goodness and mercy follow.
In This Episode:
- Why Galatians speaks to exhausted believers
- Grace as finished work rather than performance
- Paul's authority and Damascus testimony
- Peter's slip into legalism and Paul's correction
- The curse of striving versus Christ's redemption
- Law and grace as oil and water
- Freedom from people-pleasing and approval
- Adoption, identity, and life in Christ
We trace Paul's fierce defense of grace in Galatians, moving from his Damascus turn to his public stand with Peter and into the everyday freedom of living loved. Legalism's treadmill is exposed, and we rest in Christ's finished work instead of performing for approval.
If this message lifts your head, share it with a friend who needs relief from religious pressure. Subscribe, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us where grace is setting you free right now.
Thanks for listening. Find us on YouTube, Substack, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
This is Austin Gardner with Followed by Mercy Podcast. I'm excited to be with you again today. I was uh just thinking and praying and letting the Lord work in my life, and I was thinking about the book of Galatians. And back when I was a young preacher, just getting started in my first church. I taught the book of Galatians for a long time. God used it to impact my life. And I still need to learn, and I'm still growing, but God has been doing a work in my life. My favorite book back then, I guess. I mean, we're talking over 50 years ago, was M. R. DeHan's Studies in the Book of Galatians. He called the book of Galatians the Magna Carta of Christian liberty. So, if you've if you've ever felt like you could never be enough for God, if performance-based religion left you weary, ashamed, or afraid, we're going to talk about this book of Galatians a minute. Because grace isn't a doctrine to debate, it is the heartbeat of the gospel. Paul refuses to let anyone, no matter how religious, steal that grace away. Our freedom doesn't depend on performance, but a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. This is a declaration of independence from legalism. It's Paul standing in the middle of the church and shouting, Don't go back to slavery. It's not a matter of law and grace, but a matter of law or grace. It cannot be both. That's the heartbeat of the book of Galatians. Paul begins, like always, he's thanking God on the remembrance. But he jumps straight to the problem. He says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another. You can almost hear his broken heart. The Galatians had started well. They were saved by grace through faith. But along the way, religion said to them, It can't be that simple. And that whisper turned into bondage, slavery. That's kind of what we do, isn't it? We start out trusting Christ completely, knowing that we are loved, forgiven, and accepted, but without noticing it, we keep measuring ourselves again and again. How's my prayer life? Have I been good enough? Did I read the Bible enough today? That's when grace begins to fade into the performance. Yeah, Margaret Hahn used to like to say, the law is like a mirror. It can show you the dirt on your face, but it can't wash it off. You see, the law exposes, but grace cleanses. And if you've been living under the weight of religion, always striving, always falling short, you can stop trying to earn what's already been freely given. Paul said, Christ gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world. Delivered past tense. Now, if you behave, not if you behave, not if you measure up, but delivered because of the cross. Paul didn't learn that in a classroom. He said, I didn't receive this from a man. I wasn't taught it by a man. I got this as direct revelation of Jesus Christ. He'd been the most religious man you can imagine. He was a Pharisee among Pharisees. He, if anybody was going to earn God's favor, it was Paul. But on the road to Damascus, everything changed. His credentials were burned in the fire of grace. He met Jesus, and all the law, all the pride, all the striving turned to ashes. That's what grace does. It knocks us off our horse. It blinds us long enough for our hearts to say. Maybe you've been riding your own road to Damascus, working hard to prove something to God or to people, but grace will meet you there, not with condemnation, but with mercy. Jesus doesn't say try harder. He says, follow me. Paul tells a story of confronting Peter. See, even apostles can forget the grace. Peter was no lightweight. He had walked with Jesus. He had preached at Pentecost. He had led the early church, but he got tangled up in legalism. When certain men from Jerusalem showed up, Peter showed up. Peter stopped eating with Gentile believers. He was afraid of what the religious crowd from Jerusalem might think. Paul said he withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed. That's pretty strong, but that's what the gospel was worth. The gospel was at stake. Peter's actions were saying faith isn't enough. You need to add something. And Paul couldn't let that go. Grace doesn't play favorites. There's no first class Christianity for rule keepers and count or coach for sinners saved by grace. We're all in the same seat, covered by the same blood. Even apostles aren't immune to legalism. We all drift toward earning. That's what Paul was doing. He was saying, Let's get them back to the cross. Let's get them back to the cross. Paul said, as many as are of the works of the law or under the curse. That sounds harsh. And do you realize what it means? The curse isn't God's anger, it's the endless treadmill of trying to be good enough. You can never rest. You can't ever know if you've done enough. You keep running, but you never get there. That's the curse. But Christ has redeemed us from that curse. He was made the curse for us. Picture that for a moment. The spotless Son of God hanging on a tree, taking the full weight of your guilt and mind. He absorbed the curse so we could live in the blessing. That's grace. Now, you know what? Here's some things that Mr Dehan used to repeat over and over, and we need to hear over and over. You cannot mix the law and grace. They're as different as oil and water. Law condemns, grace saves. Law demands, grace provides. Law says, do this and live. Grace said, it's finished. Now live. I've lived in that tension. I I know that Jesus paid it all, but another part of me kept saying, I need to pay him back. I need to pay him back. You ever do that? You know you're forgiven, but you still punish yourself. You still want to earn the smile that's already yours. That's not humility, it's unbelief in disguise. Grace isn't a second chance. Grace is a brand new life. Paul says, Do I not persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. When you live by grace, you're free from the tyranny of people's opinions. That ought to sink in. You stop performing for applause. You stop apologizing for your joy, and you start resting in the love that can't be lost. Grace frees a man from himself first and then from others. If you've been exhausted by trying to make everybody happy, trying to live up to their expectations, remember, Jesus never asks you to impress anyone. He just asks you to trust him. Boy, it's a lesson I need to learn. Paul wasn't writing to strangers. He was writing to people he loved, people he had led to Christ. He watched them find joy in grace, then he watched them lose it to religion. He saw the light in their eyes fade into fear and performance. That's why he fought so fiercely. Because once you lose grace, you lose your peace, your joy, your power. You start living like an orphan when you've been adopted as a son. So let's remember some things. You don't have to earn anything today. You don't have to prove anything today. You don't have to make up for yesterday. Christ already did. Let that truth wash over you like clean water after a long day of striving and working. Grace isn't a theory, it's a person. It's a person who took your place and now lives inside of you. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Now I want to keep going through the book of Galatians with you. Just a scan, I'll go over some more tomorrow. But I just want you to know we've got to leave this desire to gain praise, to please God out of it, because Jesus already did that for you. You're loved today. Surely goodness and mercy are following you all the days of your life. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you. The shepherds leading you. Goodness and mercy are following you. You're swallowed up in God's love. God loves you. You're in the middle of that. You're his beloved. Now let's live and act like that's who we are. So it's all by grace. We didn't earn it, we didn't gain it. He did it for us, in us, and we ought to be excited about that. Thank you for listening. I'd ask you to pray about inviting other people to listen if this is a blessing to you. Thank you so much.
