SEMESTER 6
386 – Have Thine Own Way
BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE: ECCLESIOLOGY VI (HYMNOLOGY) LESSON # 86
THE DOCTRINES AND EFFECTS OF CHURCH MUSIC – HAVE THINE OWN WAY LORD
Read: Acts 9:1-9
INTRODUCTION:
1. Often we say, whatever you want is fine with me, but how seldom is it true?
2. The great songs of submission may have us singing a great deal of hypocrisy.
3. We are creatures of will by our own created nature. We naturally want our way.
4. Many make much of “free will.” Would to God we were actually free to want only the good.
III: If only the drunk, who vows to never touch liquor again, had true freedom of will.
5. Real submission to God is the submission of the will, and is humanly impossible.
6. This great song outlines the self-evaluation that makes submission possible.
7. In these lyrics, let us see what man is, and what he truly needs.
I. THIS SONG CONFESSES MAN IS BUT DUST
“I am the clay…”
1. God’s identification here, as potter, properly identifies us as the clay. He owns the clay. (Jer. 18:1-4)
2. Thus, God is rightly sovereign over the clay. (Rom. 9:20-21)
3. Proper understanding of who God is, and who we are, genders toward submission.
4. All men naturally resist (and to their hurt), but when they submit all is well.
5. God is not only the potter, but the all-wise and all-good potter Who does it best.
II. THIS SONG INVITES GOD’S INSPECTION AND JUDGMENT
“Search me and try me Master today.”
1. I wave all my claim to “right of privacy,” no bargaining.
2. We tend to sort out our sin and bring assorted ones to God for surrender.
3. This verse invites God, the Holy Spirit, to make a total and complete inspection.
4. It then pleads the blood for the cleansing that will be needed. (Psa.19:9-12)
III. THIS SONG CONFESSES OUR FALLEN STATE
“Wounded and weary help me I pray.”
1. “Wounded and weary” denotes the realization of sin’s effect on him.
2. We see this in every area and endeavor of our own pursuit of life.
3. We are like the man who “went down” from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell.
4. How pathetic, fruitless and hurtful has been our battle for self-rule.
III: How the parent trembles when the child says, “It is my life, I will live it.”
5. We are powerless to correct and heal ourselves from this foolish state, but God can.
III: All we can do by lifting on our boot straps is to deform our back.
IV. THE SONG STATES SURRENDER TO DIVINE DOMINION (LUKE 15:19
)
1. Realization of ignorance and helplessness is fundamental to repair. (I Ki. 3:7)
2. This realization incites resignation to absolute, divine direction of our being.
3. But I cannot surrender my own will unless I am broken by the power of God.
III: “I am not, make me as one of thy hired servants.” (I have been there.)
4. Some well-equipped men have not been greatly used of God not being broken.
5. Do you really mean it when you sing “Have thine own way Lord, Have thine own way.”
6. Would to God our hearts were such that we could sing this and really mean it.