Sermon Central
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The Operating System Series
Contributed by Russ Barksdale on Jul 22, 2015 (message contributor)
Summary: Marriages work best when they operate by God’s design
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
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
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.
