1/26 The Operating System Genesis 1-3
What’s the operating system for marriage?
Basic Setup #1: The nature and role of a man is to initiate
Genesis 2:7; 15-18
Priority of Primacy: the first has priority and authority
Ephesians 5:22-23; 25
First, place this in context
Second, this places a great deal of responsibility on the husband.
Basic Setup #2: The nature and role of a woman is to respond
The Blue Screen of Death Genesis 3:1-7
Blue Screen #1: Man’s passivity
Blue Screen #2: Woman’s aggression
Genesis 2:24
Reboot:
(M) How can I do better initiating Spiritual leadership?
(W) Where do I need to respond by letting up on the reigns?
(S) In what areas do I need to become more like the person I’m looking for?
There is a basic, fundamental, universal need in the heart of every human being: to love and be loved. No matter who you are this morning, whether old or young, single or married, gay or strait, you want to love someone, and you want to be loved by someone special. Oscar Wilde said, “A life without love is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
For some of you here this morning, your heart is a sunless garden, and the flowers of love are dying or dead. When our hearts are younger, they are tender and receptive. As we get older, our hearts can get hardened and jaded. For me it started in 4th grade when I tried to kiss Margot Ramon. She was incredibly beautiful. I sat in class and couldn’t take my eyes off her perfectly formed lips. I had to kiss them. finally I got enough nerve to ask her if I could kiss her. She turned me down. Then I though of a way to trick her; you know, “Hey, I’ve got a secret to tell you.” Didn’t work. We get rejected; we get taken advantage of; we look for love in ways and places that end up bringing us great pain. But the universal need is still there: We need to love and we need to be loved.
That’s the way God made us. He said in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” When I was in jr high & then high school, my heart longed to love and be loved. I got so many crushes on cheer leaders and beautiful girls I was in constant heat. Yeah, there was a physicalness to the yearning, I admit. But it was deeper than that. I wanted to love and be loved. When I was in college, that yearning got even stronger. I was in that age-range where getting married was more of a possibility than when in high school. I thought I’d found my life-mate in college, fell head over heals in love, but it wasn’t to be. And so the search continued. I graduated and headed to Houston for a career in the oil business and for almost ten years I kept drifting in and out of relationships looking for that special one; the one that would settle my heart; the one I could love and would love me.
Along the way I made a lot of mistakes. Some of them devastating. But by God’s grace, I recovered…and learned a lot of lessons. I guess the primary lesson I learned was that God’s way is the best way; that His word was the light that would guide me.
I learned that for me To meet and marry the right person meant that I needed to be cooperating with God to BE the right person; to grow in Jesus and to let my heart rest in Him. If you’re single, learn that and save yourself a lot of heart-ache. Let your heart rest in Him. Let your relationship with Jesus be enough for you. Doesn’t mean you’ll stop longing for that love relationship, but it will carry you through and it will protect you from making awful mistakes and it will prepare you for the time and the person God appoints.
During that time I was single, I began to understand God’s design for marriage. As I learned God’s design for marriage, it helped me decide to only date the right kinds of people, it certainly guided me to Sue, and it certainly has served me well for these almost 33 years in marriage.
In my years of ministry, I’ve found that most people, most church-folk don’t really understand God’s design for marriage. The result is that most singles aren’t really prepared for marriage and that most married people aren’t getting the full benefit out of their marriage.
What kind of operating system do you have on your computer? If you have a Mac like I do, you probably are on the Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion. If you have a PC, you operate on DOS with a Windows overlay. The operating system is the design by which your computer works properly.
Q: What’s the operating system for marriage? What is God’s design for your marriage? If God is the one who created us, and if God is the one who established marriage, then guess what? His design is flawless and the instructions are preserved for us in the Bible. You can’t buy this OS online; you won’t get it from watching ET or Big Brother or the Kardashians or Bachelor. You can only find this in the Bible; you can only download this from God’s word. Now you can try to operate according to another operating system, but it will end badly for you, I promise.
The operating system for marriage is found in the 1st 2 chapters of the Bible, Genesis 1 & 2. You might turn to that. In the weeks to come we’re going to talk about how communication can improve in marriage, how your sex lives can improve—in marriage, how to reboot your marriage if it’s struggling, if you’re a parent, how to parent more effectively, and if you’re single, what viruses to avoid that can really screw you up. But at the beginning of this series, we need to start at the beginning; with the basic setup of the operating system.
Let’s look at Basic Setup #1: The nature and role of a man is to initiate
Look at Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.” Now skip to 2:15-18 “The LORD God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.”
So then God made Adam a helper, Eve. One of the principles you see in the Bible when you study it is what’s called the Priority of Primacy: the first has priority and authority That’s why the 1st born always was to assume leadership in the absence of the father; the 1st born was to get the double blessing. Because man was created 1st, he has the responsibility of leadership in the marriage.
You see this born out not only in the OT, but also in the NT. Ephesians 5:22-23 “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.”
Now ladies, before you start throwing stuff at me(chunk), I need to say 2 things:
First, place this in context. Is Jesus the head of the church? Are we to submit to Him? Yes. Why do we? Because of His great love for us and our love for Him. He’s not standing over us beating our heads; we’re not door mats. We are in a love relationship with Him and because of His great love, we are willing follow Him.
Second, this places a great deal of responsibility on the husband. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.”
Guys, you are charged with the responsibility of leading and loving your wives as Christ does the church. Men were created to lead in the marriage. Now, if you misunderstand your responsibility, you will try to dominate your woman. But if you understand it properly, you will provide, protect, and bond with your woman. Repeat
Basic Setup #2: The nature and role of a woman is to respond
In my 40 years of ministry, I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t want her husband to lead lovingly, initiate godly activities, provide and protect and bond with her. She wants to be included in decisions. She wants to feel like a teammate, not a servant. She wants her opinions and insights to be valued. But she also wants to know that her man is so in love with her that he is willing to be the point man for her. You know what a point man is, don’t you? When a platoon is in enemy territory, each person in the platoon has a responsibility, but there is one person out on the point looking, leading, and willing to take the heat, and willing to make the sacrifice.
Now obviously in our 21st century culture, this is NOT a popular message. And so many times, instead our marriage operating smoothly, we try another operating system and get The Blue Screen of Death. Let’s talk about what the blue screen of death; you know, when your computer just shuts down & possibly ruined.
Genesis 3:1-7 “Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”
4 “No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.”
Blue Screen #1: Man’s passivity
Let me ask you this: who did the serpent tempt? Adam or Eve? Eve. Where was Adam? Out playing golf? No. He was right there. Text says Eve took some of the fruit and gave it to Adam and told him to eat it. Where was Adam? Standing passively by. If you’ve studied the book of Romans, you know that the Bible says, Just as sin entered through one man, and death through sin, salvation has come through one man, Jesus. Sin entered humanity not through Eve, but through Adam. And what was this sin that thrust humanity and all creation into chaos? Passivity. Adam should have been the leader. He should have protected his wife. He should have initiated a defensive battle plan, but he didn’t.
Men, can I speak honestly with you this morning? To the degree you are standing idly by and not leading in your marriage, not initiating daily prayer with your wife, not initiating spiritual discussions, not initiating ministry together, not leading the way in spiritual growth and maturity, to that same degree you are robbing your wife and your marriage and you are allowing the adversary to steal valuable life out of your marriage.
Blue Screen #2: Woman’s aggression
So Adam is passive, & leaves Eve vulnerable, and she commits a fatal step: she decides to lead. Her aggression worsens which doesn’t help the situation, and they find themselves ashamed and a separation occurs between them and God… and between Adam and Eve.
Ladies, can I speak honestly with you this morning? The reason you might have so much conflict in your home is you keep insisting on being the initiator and controller at home… and your husband tries to grab the reigns and you fight him for them and many times the guy will just stop trying and become passive. He shouldn’t, but he doesn’t want to fight all the time. And the marriage begins to die.
See, this thing called marriage doesn’t operate properly unless both man and woman, husband and wife understand their roles and live accordingly. When you do understand and you do operate according to God’s design, the marriage is a glorious experience that gets stronger, healthier, and the bond lasts for a lifetime.
Genesis 2:24 “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.”
This bond should be stronger than any other earthly bond. You’re actually one flesh in the eyes of God. What’s good for one is good for the other. What’s bad for one is bad for the other.
I like to think of marriage operating properly like a couple ballroom dancing.(pic) There is an initiator, and there is a responder, but they move across the floor as one, enjoying each other and their lives to the max.
So how do you reboot your system? If you’re not operating this way, what can you do to reboot? Go home today and begin a discussion about how you can better operate within your roles. Guys, YOU initiate the discussion. “Honey, how can I be a better spiritual leader?” Then put fasten your chinstrap and get it on! Do it. Be a man! And then as you try to lead, let her know when she’s not letting go of the reigns. Ladies, if you want your man to be a man, let him.
