The following sermon is by John MacArthur, pastor, author, and Bible teacher with Grace

to You.

If you've never contacted Grace to You, we want to send you a free booklet by John that

unpacks fifteen Greek words in Scripture that explain a stunning paradox, how a God

of perfect justice can show mercy to sinners who deserve only punishment.

Request your free booklet titled 15 Words of Hope by writing to Hope at gty.org.

This offer is good in North America and Europe through June 2023.

And now unleashing God's truth one verse at a time.

Here's Grace to You, Bible teacher John MacArthur.

In Luke 233, we read and his father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about him.

That's something to contemplate.

His father and his mother, meaning Joseph and Mary, were amazed at the things which were being said about him.

What was so amazing to start with was that so much was being said about him before he was even born.

We would like to know more about our children before they show up.

We don't have that right or that privilege.

But these two ordinary Jewish young people, Mary, maybe around the age of thirteen, that was pretty standard for marriage.

And Joseph also a young teenager, not in any sense extraordinary.

We don't know anything about their parents or grandparents.

We know names because their genealogies are given because they had to come from the line of David, Joseph's genealogies given in Matthew and Mary's is in Luke.

But we don't know anything about their background.

Doesn't tell us anything about their education, doesn't tell us anything about the meager accomplishments that their families might have achieved.

They were too young to have achieved anything significant as teenagers.

...