RELATE: What God Has Been Forming in Us
- Dave Mergens
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Over the past several weeks at Avon Community Church, we’ve been walking through David's life in a sermon series called RELATE. And while the series has been full of relationships—friendship, jealousy, integrity, grief, conflict, confession—the deeper theme has been this:
God is forming a kind of person who can relate faithfully.
RELATE wasn’t meant to be “tips for better relationships.” It was meant to be discipleship—heart-level formation that changes how we relate to God, to others, and even to ourselves.
Here’s the arc we walked:
Week 1 — Identity before performance
God chose David because of his heart. Before David did anything impressive, he was chosen. That set the tone for the whole series: our relationships don’t become healthy by striving for approval—they become healthy when we live from a secure identity in God.
Week 2 — Friendship and protection
Godly friendships are wise safeguards. Jonathan didn’t just “support” David—he protected him, strengthened him, and helped him stay faithful. We were reminded: we are not meant to follow Jesus alone.
Week 3 — Jealousy and inner corrosion
Comparison destroys relationships. Saul’s jealousy wasn’t just a feeling; it became a force that reshaped everything. We saw how insecurity produces suspicion, how comparison steals joy, and how unchecked jealousy fractures community.
Week 4 — Integrity and restraint
Opportunity is not always permission. David had moments where he could have taken revenge, grabbed power, or justified himself. Instead, he chose restraint. Integrity isn’t proven when doing right is easy—it’s proven when doing wrong would be excused.
Week 5 — Grief and faithful endings
Ending well requires grieving well. David’s lament taught us that endings aren’t always failures—and grief is not weakness. Unprocessed grief leaks into future relationships. Honoring the past without being governed by it is deeply spiritual work.
Week 6 — When attention drifts
Spiritual failure rarely begins with rebellion; it begins with inattentiveness. David didn’t suddenly stop loving God—he stopped paying attention. We traced the slow progression: drift, desire, control, damage. And we were invited to ask a hard but healing question: Where have I stopped paying attention and assumed it didn’t matter?
Week 7 — Confession, consequences, and grace
Grace meets us not when we hide, but when we tell the truth. David’s turning point wasn’t punishment—it was confession. Psalm 51 showed repentance as inward honesty, renewal, humility, and return. We held two truths together: forgiveness is real, and consequences can remain. But consequences are not rejection.
Week 8 — A legacy worth leaving
A legacy worth leaving is shaped less by your worst moment and more by your long obedience to God. David ends by remembering God’s faithfulness, describing righteous character, and naming the people who stood with him. Legacy is relational. Faithfulness is returning. And God’s faithfulness holds the whole story together.
What RELATE was really about
RELATE has been a series about learning to live like this:
secure in identity
protected by friendship
free from comparison
rooted in integrity
honest in grief
attentive in daily life
courageous in confession
steady in long obedience
That’s not self-help. That’s sanctification.
Call to Action: One step this week
If you want RELATE to become more than “good sermons,” don’t try to apply everything at once. Take one faithful step this week.
Choose one:
Identity: Write one sentence that is true because of Christ (not because of performance).
Friendship: Text one godly friend and ask for prayer or honesty.
Jealousy: Name one comparison habit and intentionally fast it this week.
Integrity: Choose the right thing in one small moment where compromise would be easy.
Grief: Name one ending you haven’t grieved and offer it to God in prayer.
Attention: Identify one area where you’ve drifted and take one “return” action.
Confession: Stop managing. Tell the truth to God today.
Legacy: Invest in one person intentionally—encouragement, presence, prayer, time.
The goal isn’t perfection.
The goal is faithfulness.
And faithfulness is built one day at a time.
Closing encouragement
God is not writing your story around your worst moment—He’s writing it around His faithfulness. And the way forward isn’t denial or perfection, but honesty. Grace doesn’t meet the version of you that you can manage; it meets the real you in the light, and it keeps forming you—through identity, friendship, integrity, grief, attentiveness, confession, and long obedience—until what you leave behind isn’t a record of performance, but a legacy of returning to a faithful God.
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