Followed By Mercy

Seeking What’s Lost

• W. Austin Gardner

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Jesus continues to eat with people the religious crowd avoids. That’s the scandal that starts this episode. From there, we open Luke 19:10 and Luke 15 to trace a single, relentless theme: God’s heart beats for the lost not as a label to condemn, but as beloved people missing from where they belong.

We walk through three stories that reveal mercy in motion. A sheep that wanders without malice. A coin that’s valuable yet unaware. A son who rebels and walks away. Each story ends in the same crescendo of joy. The shepherd searches until he finds the sheep and carries it home on his shoulders. The woman lights a lamp and sweeps until the coin shines in her hand. The father runs to meet his son, interrupts the rehearsed apology with kisses and clothes, and throws a feast that offends the pride of the elder brother.

Along the way, we face our own reflexes. Do we scold or carry? Do we count the ninety-nine or feel the ache of the one? Are we living like a coin, valuable but unaware of our need, or like the elder brother, close to the house but far from the father’s heart? We share vivid, real-life stories that bring these parables to life, from the panic of a missing child in an airport to the joy of finding a lost ring glinting in gravel. The thread that ties it all together is this: value determines pursuit. Heaven’s soundtrack is the laughter of the found.

We end with a simple, hopeful charge. If Christ came to seek and save, and Christ lives in us, then our prayers, giving, and presence become God’s lamp and broom in the world from our neighborhood to places like the Ivory Coast, Indonesia, and Guatemala. Let’s trade judgment for joy, murmurs for music, and hesitation for pursuit that doesn’t quit.

If this message touches your heart, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review to help others find their way home.

Key Themes:

 • Redefining “lost” as loved and belonging

 • The shepherd’s pursuit and joy over one found

 • The woman’s diligence and the coin’s unaware worth

 • The prodigal’s return and the father’s running grace

 • The elder brother’s resentment and missed heart

 • Value determines pursuit as a missional call

 • Living as touchpoints of God’s love in daily life

 • Moving from judgment to joy and celebration

“Just say, Lord, here’s my life. What do you want to do? How much do you want us to give here?”

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

Austin Gardner:

Cause you to fall in love more with souls. So take your Bible if you would and go with me to Luke chapter 19 and verse 10 first, only one verse, and then we'll jump to Luke 15 and be there the rest of the day. But in Luke 19, 10, the Bible says, For the Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost. That is like a key verse, in my opinion, for everything we know about God. Why did Jesus come? Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. He came to seek and save that which was lost. And there's a lot of things going on in there. He's the Son of Man, the Son of Man meaning he's the Messiah, he's God, he's God in human flesh. And why did he come to earth? Why would God become one of us and live among us and die on a cross? Because he came to seek and save the lost. Now, in our society, in our ways of Baptist church life, you might say, the word lost is often a kind of a dirty word. You know, we're the saved and they're the lost. And people don't know Jesus. And people wicked and people lost. But Jesus came to seek and save the lost. The word lost is a is a pretty important word because lost means that it belongs to you. It belongs to you. I mean, can you lose my car? Can you lose? Can you lose my phone? Uh my wife can lose her phone all the time. Amen. And most of the time it can be found in her purse after she uses her watch to find out where her phone is. But can you lose, can you lose somebody else's? And so the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost. He came to seek and save. It's his creation. Every human on this planet, they're his creation. Can I get an amen there? He loves them, whether they're in Africa or Asia, whether they're in South America or North America. He loves them whether in Europe. He doesn't matter where they are. God loves everybody. He wants them all to be saved. He came to seek and save that which was lost. But in Luke 15, if you'll go there, he really helps us understand how he feels about the lost. By the way, he came to seek and save that which is lost, not to condemn and kick. Not to judge and criticize. Not to rough over, say you're lost, and I'm here to beat you up. The Bible verse said in Luke 19, 10, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And Luke 15, every story is going to start with a murmur and end with music. The religious leaders in Luke 15 are complaining that Jesus is just too kind to sinners. He welcomes sinners. He eats with them and then he throws a party. That's how Jesus is treating them. So Jesus tells three stories. He's doing these stories so you can know the father and you can know the father's heart. He tells the story of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and two lost sons. And every story that he tells tells us a different angle. The heart of God breaks for the lost, that's one. The heart of God breaks for lost people of what he's lost. He searches for the lost and he rejoices when he finds it. And loss doesn't mean worthless. It might at the Baptist Church, but in God's vocabulary, it means it's valuable. I've lost it. It's missing from where it belongs. Look at Luke chapter 15, verse 1, if you would. The Bible says, then drew near unto him the publicans and sinners for to hear him. Now, isn't that ridiculous? Here is Jesus, and the religious people are not coming close, but the publicans and the sinners are there to hear him. Now you notice what he did, he separated publicans and sinners, because sinners are just really bad people, you know. They can be the prostitutes or the murderers or the thieves or the liars or the proud or the vainglorious. They can be any of that. But publicans, those are those are traitors to the Jewish heritage. They're Jews that have been collecting taxes from Jews to give to Rome. And they're they are literally the people you don't even acknowledge that exist. They don't exist. They're nobodies, they're the lowest you can get on the totem poet, but those guys come to hear Jesus. And in verse 2, look what happens. Verse 2, the Pharisees and scribes murmured. They said, This guy receives sinners and he eats with them. It's a big deal in Hebrew culture that you would eat together. Eating means that you love each other, you trust each other, you accept each other, you're in covenant with each other. And Jesus is eating with them. And so Jesus says, I think I should tell y'all some stories. I need you to understand how our father is. And the first story he tells is about a sheep. A sheep that's wandered off, can't get back, it's separated, and it's not in rebellion. This morning, a Peruvian guy from Arequipa sends me, uh he's in the Bible college, and he sends me a WhatsApp video just to tell me he loves me. But that guy was a pastor, a shepherd, that's a pastor, and pastor and shepherds, same word in Spanish. He was a shepherd of sheep before he went, he became a Bible college student. And he I was preaching on the 23rd Psalm in Peru just a couple of weeks ago. And as I preached on that, he loved it so much because he knew exactly how sheep are. And when it says the Lord is my shepherd, he was like, I understand all that you're saying about the shepherd. And for him, it was to for him, it was really funny because he said he would sometimes be watching his sheep, and uh and a lamb or a sheep would kind of start to wander off and maybe even jump a gully or cross a fence and get on the other side. He said, I could see them. He said, but then all of a sudden they'd wake up and start crying because they didn't know where they were and they couldn't find a shepherd, and they couldn't see what was going on, and they were all upset. And he said, But I just laughed because I knew where my sheep was, because I keep an eye on my sheep. And so he loved it when he heard that. So you see, here Jesus says, I want to tell y'all a story. There's a guy that's got a hundred sheep, and one of them is missing. What's he gonna do? This is a tremendous thought that you gotta take home with you. And by the way, it reminds me of our daughter Joy. She's an old lady now, she's like 45 years old, but back then she was a little big girl. Betty and I were young, married pastor of a little church I'd started when I was 23, and and uh I was having an evening. I wanted to take a little time, you know, to have some family time. And so we went to the airport back in the days when you could, just to see the planes take off and land. It didn't cost me anything, but I could spend time with the family. And so we're at the airport, and Joy is just a little bitty thing, and there's two other children. There's like uh Chris and Stephanie and Joy. And in a few minutes, in the middle of the Atlanta airport, we realized Joy was lost. She was missing. We couldn't find her. Now, she's gone. Now, you know what parents do when they lose a child, because now my child is lost. That's an all-out emergency. Can I get an amen? Now I could have said, Well, I still got two kids, so she ain't that important. But and Jesus could have said, I still got 99 sheep. And that's not that important, but that's not what he does. Because he seeks, he came to seek and save that which was lost. So we're looking around for joy, and we're running, and Betty's panicking, and I'm panicking, and and finally, finally, there's a policeman, just a smiling, and joy just a point. There's my mom and my daddy, and she ain't even scared. The other day, the other day, one of my grandkids gets lost, and he's at the police station having a blast. He's he's having they're giving him little pitties and with bears, and and he's a little prubian kid, and they're giving him all this stuff. He's just having a blast. We're terrified. You know what I mean? So it's a lost sheep. But I want you to know something about the sheep. Sheep too dumb. The sheep wasn't in rebellion. The sheep didn't go running away to get separated. The sheep just kind of dumb. That's how people are sometimes. There are people who've wandered away from God, wandered away from the things of God, and now they don't come to church, or they never did come to church, or maybe life got too big, busy for them. Maybe things don't have gone wrong and they're out there. But Jesus says, I seek for my sheep. I seek for my sheep. He searches and searches till he finds them. And I want you to go in your Bible. You look at your Bible and verse 4, look what he says. And what man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does he not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after that which is lost? And I want you to understand, underline this, until he find it. Look at the passion. He's like, that's how we went after joy. We weren't gonna go, well, we give her 30 minutes, we can't find her, she can just figure it out on her own. That's not what we did. We were like, we gotta find our daughter. We gotta get our daughter, we gotta bring our daughter home. And that's what the Lord's doing doing. He loves people. By the way, notice what he does in verse 5. He wasn't a Baptist for sure. Because you know what a Baptist would have done when he found a sheep. He'd have been kicking the sheep. Get home, get back to the house where you belong. Doing that again. I'll lay one on you. No, he picks that sheep up, lays it on his shoulders. Little sheep head there right beside his head. And all the way home, he's just a happy and he's singing and giving that little sheep kiss. How you do? I'm so glad I found here's a sheep treat. Enjoy that. And he's taking that sheep home. He's taking that sheep home happy because he came to seek and save that which was lost. Look at it until he found it. And then look at verse 5. But what's he do? He lays it on his shoulders and he's rejoicing. But that ain't enough. You know what the sweetest sound in heaven is? The laughter of the found. The laughter of the wow, he found us. He brought us home. He gets home with the sheep. If he'd have been a good Baptist, he'd have called his neighbor and said, We will have a party tonight. I'm killing that sheep. Got away for the last time. We're having roast sheep tonight. Amen. That sheep won't be escaping again. We got that sheep under control. That's not what he does. He comes home with that sheep and he starts yelling at all of his neighbors and friends. He says, Y'all come quick. We're going to have a party. I found my sheep. I found my sheep because our God loves people. By the way, then he said Jesus throws in for those religious people. He says in verse 6, he said, Rejoice with me, for I have, excuse me, he said, I found my sheep, but Jesus throws in here, you know what? That's what happens in heaven. That's what happens in heaven in verse 7. There's joy. Second story he tells is the story of a lost coin. See, he's explaining lost. He said, I came to seek and save that which is lost. And some is lost like a like a sheep, kind of dumb and wandered away. But others lost like a coin. No, the coin doesn't know its value. A coin doesn't have any idea how important it is. A coin is lost, and it's unaware it's lost. It's like I don't even know how a coin doesn't have a thought pattern. Can I get an amen? It doesn't know it's lost, it's unaware that it's lost, it can't respond, it can't cry out. It's lost. There's people like that too. I don't know if you could think of a what if you were born in China and you never heard the gospel, and all you heard was evolution, you have no idea. But the father loves you, and the father cares, and he sent Jesus to seek and save that which is lost. Years ago, Betty, when Betty and I got married, I'm a poor country redneck. I mean, just be honest, that's who I am. And so when I married Betty, Betty's up from the hootie-tooties up here at the big shots, and I'm from the really low shots. And when we were dating, we were up at the pine grove behind my dad's house on the farm, and one night she was wearing an engagement ring from her grandmother on this finger. And so I said to her, Would you marry me someday? And basically I'd already asked her that, and she said yes. I said, Well, what about why don't we just take that engagement ring off that finger and put it on this finger, and then we'll be engaged? And so Betty goes around telling people, I'm engaged, look at that, and just took it off his finger, put it on that finger. That's how poor I was. But a little later on, I got enough money and I bought her her first engagement ring. She'd already had four kids, but I bought her her first engagement ring that came from me. Well, my kids got ready to get married. I said, Don't do things like your daddy did. Amen. But then one day Betty comes in the house and she's lost her engagement ring. It's gone. It's like the coin. It's gone. We don't know where it's at. She searches the house over. And Betty knows where everything but her phone is. Amen. And so she's searching the house over and she's looking and she can't find it. And days go by and she can't find it, and she's crying. It's gone. It's lost. But it's very valuable to her. That one he bought me. That ain't grandmama's. He bought me that one. And we couldn't find it. And weeks go by. And then our daughter comes home. One day comes to our house and she pulls in and sees light reflecting off the driveway. And there's the ring laying in the gravel. And she found the ring. And there was rejoicing. And that's what's going on right here. The coins have been lost. Now look what happens in verse 8. I need you to look at verse 8. Either what woman having 10 pieces of silver, if she loses one piece, does she not light a candle and sweep the house and seek diligently till she finds it? Now there's 10 drachmas or these 10 coins that this lady would have might have been a headband. It's like an engagement ring. It's like a notice to everybody. I am married. And she lost one of those coins. Now the coin doesn't know it's lost. And the coin didn't do anything to get lost. And the coin can't find itself, and the coin can't get help. And the coin's in big trouble, but it doesn't even know it's in trouble. But look what she does. She lights a candle, she diligently searches. I need you to underline in your verse, she seeks diligently. That's what the Lord wants. That's what these missionaries are doing. They're going from town to town, from village to village, seeking diligently and looking. And notice what? Till she finds it. Again. He doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. It's never over. He just keeps on coming until he finds it. And guess what happens? Guess what happens? Look at verse 9. And they say, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I love, which I had lost. I found the peace which I had lost. You see, it was important to her. Then in verse 10 it says, And in heaven, don't they do rejoicing just like this when a sinner gets saved? Did you know every time a person gets saved, heaven erupts in applause and laughter and fun and joy and rejoicing because people get saved. You see, Jesus is trying to tell us how his father feels about people all around the world. You see, the lost are missing. And he's telling that story. The shepherd notices when one sheep is missing. The woman notices a missing coin. And the next story, a father watches till his son comes home. It's the story of the prodigal son. If you lose a cheap pen, you just shrug. That's okay, I got another one. If you lose a cheap one, if you lose a wedding ring, you drop everything and you search. Why? Because value determines pursuit. Value determines pursuit. And Jesus is pursuing lost people all over the world. I want you to get a hold of what happens here. In Luke chapter 15, our next story is a story about a prodigal son. Now the first one is kind of like wandering, and the second one is kind of like has nothing to do with it, can't do anything. But the third one is rebellious. I mean, he's mad. You know, he walks into his dad and he looks at his dad and says, I wish he was dead. Not really. But he says, Give me what I got coming when you are dead. That's pretty close to the same thing. Give me what you got, what I got coming. I want my part now. I don't want to wait till you die, old man. Give me my money now. Then he leaves and he goes out to the Gentiles and to the pork eaters, us, you know, amen. I love bacon. So, but he comes over in our crowd. That Jews don't like that. He's over in our crowd, he's eating some bacon and he's with us and he's enjoying it until it runs out. And when he all loses everything, he gets to thinking, I'm going hungry. I'm about to eat pig slop here. He says, I'm going to go home. And he prepares a whole line of things, like you'd say at the Baptist church when you want to get right. I ain't worthy of being a member. I ain't nobody. I really messed up. I, if I could just be one of the guys that works for you every now and then, I'd like to have that job. But when he gets to the father, when he gets to the father, the father is standing on the porch watching to see when the boy's coming home. And when he's still a long ways off, the father reaches down and pulls up his toga, his gown, and he takes off running with those spindly white legs, and he hugs and kisses a stenching, stinking pig man. And he's kissing him, and he's hugging him, he's swinging him around and around. Oh boy, my boy's come home. And he starts yelling, I need some clothes for my boy. I need you to kill the fatty cat. We're having a party. And he never listened to a word. He didn't give any conditions. He didn't say, You can come back, boy, but you better, you're on notice. You do this once, that's one thing. You do it again, I'm I'll take you out myself. No, he doesn't do that. He doesn't say to him, There's 10 things you're gonna have to do. He just throws a party. What a God you serve. See, Jesus says, That's my dad. I'm telling you about my dad, I've tell you how he acts. Our father loves everybody, and wants everybody to be saved. But there is something going on in the story. There's a religious guy in the house. And he's just as lost as a prodigal son. Because he's in the house, but he's not in the heart. He sees himself as a servant or a slave and not as a as a son. He is lost by his he is lost by his own doing, by him being good and wanting to earn it. And when the boy comes home, when the boy comes home, the dad says, My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And they began to be merry. But you know what ends up happening, don't you? Verse 25. The elder son was in the field and he comes neighborhood the house. He gets close to the house and he hears music and dancing. They're having a party. He thinks they should be having a hanging. He thinks they should be having a beating. He thinks that this brother ought to be in trouble. So he calls the servant and says, What's this going on here? The servant says, Your brother came home. And verse 28. And he was angry and would not go in. So his father came out and entreated him. And he answered, Lo, these many years I serve you, neither have I transgressed. I don't break the rules. Well, not any time of your commandments, but you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as your son, I want you to notice that as soon as thy son, not my brother, as soon as thy son comes home, he's devoured your living with harlots and has killed you. You've killed him the fatted calf. Father says in verse 32, it was meat, it was fit, it was correct that we should make merry and be glad. For your brother was dead, is alive, and was lost and is found. I want to just say to you, our father loves the world. For God so loved the world. The Son loves the world. And he came to seek and save that which was lost. He explains to us what loss means. He explains to us what loss means. Well, they got their own religion. Let them live with what they got. They got a wrong kind of government anyway. We're not elder brothers. Can I give them amen? And we're like our father. We're like our father. We're like a chip off the block, old block. And our father loves. So we love. And we care. And we care about what's happening to the people in Ivory Coast or Mali. And we care about what's happening to the people in Indonesia. And we care about what's happening to the people in Guatemala. And we care about every other country in the world. We care because our Father cares. And so you know what? Now I don't live my life. And you don't live your life. Because I am crucified with Christ. That means I'm dead. I'm crucified with Christ. But I'm alive. But it's not me that's alive, it's Christ living in me. And you and I are here on this earth, like we are like the pinpoints, we're like the touch points where God touches people. It's like we're the connecting point for God. God's like, I'm in you, so when you love on people, I'm loving on people. And when you give, I'm giving. And when you pray, I'm praying because I live in you. You're not by yourself today. You get ready to leave in a minute and you're gonna go home. You know you're not leaving the church. Well, you're leaving the church building, but the Holy Spirit lives in you. He's going home with you. Amen. And you know what? He wants to love through you, care through you, get the gospel message of the world through you. Now what are we gonna do? Well, we're found. That'll make us happy. Say amen right there. But you know, I really do think that the laughter of the found is like the sweetest music a Christian can hear. And all of a sudden, over in Ivory Coast, which was talked about this morning, people getting saved and found people. They're getting found and they're laughing and enjoying and rejoicing. And in heaven, they're rejoicing. That's what we want to do. So, how are we gonna how are we gonna handle this? I don't want you to give what I would suggest, or what the pastor would suggest, or even what you would suggest, but he lives in you and it's his ministry, and I'm pretty sure he'd tell you what to do if you just ask him. Just say, Lord, here's my life. What do you want to do? How much money do you want to give? How much do you want us to give here? Because I want to be like my father. So I end with this. Let's not be the elder brother. Because you know, we got saved. I've been in church all my life. We can have such an arrogant, bad attitude. We can be so judgmental and so critical, can't we? But that's not who we are. Because we are children of the most loving being that ever existed, the God of heaven, who describes himself as God is love. Father in heaven, I love you and I thank you for the chance to talk to your people. I pray that your name would be glorified and honored.

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Austin Gardner

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