Jesus Considers You to Be Worth the Trouble  

After setting up my outdoor nativity scene, I noticed that the lone sheep among the group of characters was not lit up. I had plugged each figure in before taking them outdoors, so I knew it had been working just a few minutes beforehand. As I subsequently examined my baaaa…d patient to try to diagnose its problem, the bulb mechanism accidentally slipped through the hole and into the belly of the sheep. Between the smallness of the hole and the winged clip on the mechanism, it turned into quite an ordeal to try to retrieve the miniature light fixture. As my wife and I worked together to fix this issue, I remembered how this same figure had suffered from some previous serious malfunctions over the past couple of years, requiring the replacement of its electrical cord. Those memories combined with my current frustration resulted in my declaring at one point, “I think this sheep is more trouble than it’s worth.” I wouldn’t have given up on baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, a wise man, or the shepherd, but I felt like a sheep was not necessarily an essential character in the scene. Nevertheless, we ended up being able recover the wayward part and ultimately got our sheep shining again.

I am thankful that our Shepherd didn’t give up on us. The Bible points out that “all we like sheep have gone astray” (Isaiah 53:6). We have all sinned, interrupting the connection between us and our Creator. We have all been guilty of going our own way rather than God’s way. We have all malfunctioned and haven’t received the light of Christ or failed to let it shine through us as God intended.     

Yet God didn’t look at us and say, “Those human beings are more trouble than they’re worth.” No, the Shepherd went to look for His lost sheep. Jesus talked about how a shepherd with a hundred sheep will leave the ninety-nine in order to go after the one that is lost. This is a picture not only of how the Lord pursues the lost today, but what He did when He came to this earth to provide the means of our salvation. When you think about it, Jesus went to a lot of trouble for us. And He considers us to be worth it.

Jesus left His glory in heaven to come to this earth. And our Shepherd didn’t just come looking for us – He became one of us. He took on flesh and blood to become one of the sheep Himself. Eventually, He suffered and died as the sacrifice for our sins. As the rest of that verse in Isaiah 53 states, “And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” And the amazing part of it is that our Shepherd believes we were worth the great price He paid for our salvation.

We may not be prominent figures in the landscape of this world. We may be relatively insignificant sheep standing to the side while the Marys and Josephs and wise men get the spotlight shone on them. However, we are important to our Shepherd. He considers you to be worth the effort for Him to come into this world. He believes you, with all of your sins, faults, and weaknesses, are worth fixing. He wants to shine His light in you, as well as make you a light to the world around you.

 Let the truth of the Incarnation – God becoming flesh – the Shepherd becoming a sheep – remind you that the Lord went to a lot of trouble for you because He loves you and considers you to be worth it. “For God so loved the world that He gave His Son…” And He did it for you.