Your Past Doesn't Disqualify You, It Prepares You: Luke 1:67-80

Your Past Doesn't Disqualify You, It Prepares You: Luke 1:67-80 For nine months, Zechariah couldn't say a word. The man whose entire job was to speak on behalf of God to the people of God lost his voice because fear got louder than God's. And the very first thing he does when that voice comes back is prophesy. Today we finish Luke 1 with Zechariah's prophecy. We'll talk about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit, what prophecy actually is, what the horn of salvation means, and how the area where Zechariah failed became the very place God used him. If you've been quietly disqualifying yourself because of your past, this one's for you. Join me on an immersive Bible Study Experience. Learn more at BibleStudyLive.org Have a question about the Luke series or a prayer request? Leave me a voicemail: SpeakPipe SEEDS: Download the free SEEDS app and take one small step today. Plant your first seed and see what God can grow. SEEDS What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? Luke tells us Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. That's the same language he used for Elizabeth, and you're going to see it over and over in Luke and in Acts. The most famous example is Pentecost in Acts 2, but Luke uses it for Peter, for Stephen, and for Paul at key moments too. And almost every time Luke says someone was filled with the Holy Spirit, a prophetic word follows. It's his signature way of telling us that what comes next isn't coming from that person's own thinking or feelings. It's coming from God through them. I love that God keeps using people in the story of Jesus. Does He have to? No. But He does, because we were created to be in relationship with Him, to know Him, to make Him known, and to be known by Him. What is prophecy, really? A lot of people hear the word prophecy and think of predicting the future. Sometimes it means that. More often, prophecy is God's people speaking on His behalf, reminding others what God has already said, what He's already done, or what He's promised to do. It's forthtelling more often than foretelling. And prophecy isn't weird. It's all through your Bible. Entire books of the Old Testament are the words of the prophets. The silent years were called silent because there were no prophets in Israel. Now that Jesus is on the scene, we see the Holy Spirit and prophecy come roaring back. Here's what's interesting. Zechariah was a priest by training and by vocation. Prophecy wasn't technically his job. But after nine months of silence, the first thing he does with his restored voice is step into a prophetic role, and God uses him in it. What is Zechariah looking back on? His prophecy has two halves. If you're doing the color method and marking timing words, you may have caught it. The first half looks back, and the second half looks forward. In the first half, he praises God for keeping His covenant promises and raising up a Savior from David's line. He reminds the people what God already said through the prophets of old: that He would save them from their enemies and show the mercy He promised to Abraham. What do holiness and righteousness actually mean? Verse 75 talks about serving God in holiness and righteousness, and I think a lot of us check out when we see those words. We figure we could never measure up. I usually fall off the wagon by breakfast. But in the biblical sense, holiness is about spiritual wholeness, being dedicated to God and made whole because we're in right relationship with Him. Righteousness is very similar. It's being in right relationship with God. How do we get there? Through belief in Jesus. Before Jesus, that relationship was maintained through animal sacrifice under the old covenant. Jesus becomes the new covenant. He's the final sacrificial lamb. What is the horn of salvation? This is a Hebrew idiom that Zechariah's world would have understood immediately, but it's easy for us to miss. The image comes from an animal's horn, like a b