The following sermon was given by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on September 11, 1983. The title is, One Lost is Too Many, and the scripture reference is the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verses 1 through 10. 

The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. I'm reading from the 15th chapter beginning at the first verse. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus.

And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he told them this parable. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it and when she has found it she calls together her friends saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.

Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. The Gospel of the Lord. I'd like to submit to you at the outset that this whole business of becoming a Christian is something so overwhelming, so all-encompassing and so profound that the New Testament has no one single concept or image or way of expressing it.

It's too much to fit into one single idea. And so there are all sorts of ways of talking about the same thing. Becoming a Christian is a matter of being converted, which means literally having a change of mind.

I used to think this, but now I think this. It's a matter of repentance, which literally means having a change of direction. There's a moral quality there.

I used to be going this way, but now I've amended my ways and I'm going this way. It's a matter of rebirth. A whole new beginning in which something deep inside me literally goes from death to life.

It's a matter of new allegiance. Scripture says once you were no people. You were nobody.

But now you're God's people. You belong to Him. There's new allegiance there.

There's a new direction. You must no longer live as the pagans do. It's a matter of becoming a member of Christ, and interestingly enough, therefore, a member of each other as well.

And we have no option about that. We have no choice as to which members of the body of Christ we'll be committed to. We're committed to all of them.

1 Corinthians 12 says, there are two things that we must not say. You have no need of me, and I have no need of you. We may not say that.

Becoming a member of Christ is becoming a member of one another. It's part of the package. All these are different ways of expressing something of what's involved in becoming a Christian.

But I wonder if you've ever stopped to think about what is the most central way of referring to that. There's no question about it. It overwhelms the New Testament.

Especially in the teaching of Jesus. Interestingly enough, He never once explicitly refers to this, but it's constantly in the background. Do you know what it is?

In the teaching of Jesus, becoming a Christian is a matter of becoming a citizen in a new kingdom. Becoming a citizen in a new kingdom. The very first words out of His mouth when He begins His ministry are repent, For the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

He announces a kingdom. There's a phrase that has often been completely misunderstood where he says, the kingdom of heaven is in you. And that people have taken to mean that somehow inside of each one of us is the kingdom.

No, what it literally means is the kingdom of heaven is in your midst. And that's because the king is in your midst. and that's his message I've come as king and the kingdom is where the king is wherever the king is that's where the kingdom is and those who would become allied to him those who would enter into relationship with him become citizens of a new kingdom this is something he never explicitly states but it is constantly there in the background And that's why most of his teaching is a matter of giving parables, little stories, story after story after story.

And what they're called are parables of the kingdom. See, what he's saying is, this is what it's like to be a member of the kingdom. This is how the kingdom works.

It's radically different than the kingdoms of this world. And that same perspective runs all the way through the New Testament. Peter writes that here on earth, we are as aliens and exiles because our true citizenship is in the heavenlies.

Paul says that God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His blessed Son. And this really isn't the point, but I want to make this in passing. Just cause you to think about it for a moment.

I would submit to you that not once, not once, did any of the early Christians face crucifixion or burning at the stake or beheading or the rage of lions because they said, I've had a wonderful religious experience. Not once. It was a matter of declaring there is another king and his name is Jesus.

And we will not submit, therefore, to any rule or any law or any statute or any commandment which would contradict the will of our king, Jesus. That has some very sobering implications, doesn't it? For folks who live in a society which is daily becoming more and more secular, the time may very well come when we have to dig in our heels and say, no, we cannot go along with that because that contradicts the will of the king.

And we'll take the consequences. You see, they faced flogging and they faced maiming and they faced death because they were citizens of a new kingdom. I've got good news for you this morning.

I've read all the way to the end of the book and we win. But this is what it's all about. Jesus said, in essence, to follow Me is to become citizens of a new kingdom.

And therefore, I want to tell you how it works. And He told these stories. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed.

It's like an expensive pearl. It's like a handful of leaven. It's like a wedding banquet.

Here's what the kingdom is like. You come to Luke 15. You might like to just look at this with me again for a moment.

There's no question that it's very deliberate that Luke put together three parables, one after another. I've read two of them to you this morning, but there are in fact three that go together. They're all parables of the kingdom, and they all make the same point.

And that point is inescapable, friends. God, who is King, Jesus, who is King, is in the business of restoring the lost. How does the kingdom work?

This kingdom is about the business of restoring the lost. My purpose in this lengthy introduction is to suggest that if we are citizens of a new kingdom, and if these are parables of the kingdom, then these are not just homely little illustrations. These are marching orders for us.

If this is what the kingdom is about, then we, citizens of that kingdom, have to be in the business of restoring the lost. Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like a shepherd. He's not content with ninety-nine sheep safe and sound in the fold, so long as one of them is out there in the wilderness somewhere.

That's too many. One lost is too many. And so he leaves the ninety-nine, And he goes out and risks darkness and cold and falling off of a cliff and maybe meeting a lion.

He risks going out after the one who's lost rather than be content with the 99. Did you get the point? If you didn't, let me tell you another.

The kingdom of heaven is like a woman. She's not content with nine silver coins safe and sound in her purse when she realizes that she's lost one. she puts the purse away carefully in the drawer turns on all the lights and stays up all night sweeping and moving furniture and looking behind things until she finds the one that was lost did you get the point?

in case you missed it let me tell you another one kingdom of heaven is like a father he's not content with one son who stays home obedient faithful so long as there's another son who's wandered off and become prodigal. And this father spends every day sitting on his front porch, searching the horizon, waiting. Maybe that boy is going to come home.

Yeah, I see somebody on the horizon. And he starts running and throws his arms around the boy and kisses him and says, bring the best robe. Bring shoes for his feet.

Bring a ring for his hand. Kill the fatted calf. My boy was lost.

He's found again. He was dead. He's come alive.

We're going to have a party. Now, each one of those makes its own point. In fact, we might just pause for a moment.

The sheep was lost because that's the way sheep are. I don't know how many of you have ever grown up with sheep. I didn't, but I've observed them on occasion.

Sheep, you see, have a built-in astrayness. If it's possible to get lost, they'll get lost. If it's possible to get found, they'll avoid it.

Thank you very much. When Jesus called you His little sheep, you thought He was patting you on the head and saying, cute little lamb. No, He's saying you're kind of dumb.

You get lost all the time. We watched sheep in England when we were visiting Joe and Frida before they came to America. All they had to do was go across the street.

Directly across the street, wide open gates, lush, thick pasture just waiting for them. Do you think they could find their way across the road? I mean every other possible direction, but they couldn't get across the road.

That's how sheep get lost. they kind of look around oh that's kind of interesting go down here one sheep takes off that way and everybody else follows him they'll follow anybody that's what sheep are like they'll follow anybody no matter where it leads the sheep got lost because not all that bright you see A little stupid. Took the wrong turn.

The coin got lost, obviously through no fault of its own, but because the woman was careless. She admitted, I lost it. I was careless at first.

Maybe I put it somewhere and I can't remember where I put it, but all I know is it's lost and I'm not going to be content with the nine that I've got. I'm going to go after the one. And the boy was lost out of rebellion, out of greed.

Give me mine now. I'm not going to wait until you die, Dad. I want my half of the inheritance right now while I'm young enough to enjoy it.

stupidity carelessness rebellion three different ways of getting lost but you see the larger point is that God is not so much concerned how you got lost what He's concerned about is that you get found aren't you glad I mean he could have said I've got 99 who needs one I've got nine who needs one I've got one I've got one and look at him faithful obedient my right hand man who needs that one rebellious, willful, immoral, disgusting. That's not what he said. He said, one lost is too many.

That's what Paul was astonished at in his letter to Timothy. Paul said you realize I was a murderer of Christians I was a persecutor I was a blasphemer God didn't save me because I earned it God saved me because I was the chief example of how sinful you can get if He could save me He could save anybody it's a cliche and yet, like most clichés, there's a truth behind it that if you were the only one, the only sinner, the only lost one in all of history, I mean, has this ever really hit you? If you were the only one, God wouldn't be content to sit around heaven with all the angels and archangels, but He would have sent Jesus to find you.

Has the enormity of His love for you ever really registered? If you were the only one, God would have come for you. Almighty God, Creator of the universe, would not have been content because you lost His too many.

Praise God. But I said this is a matter of marching orders and that's the other side of the coin. That's the other edge of the sword.

If this is Christ's attitude, then it needs to be ours, doesn't it? If that's the way the kingdom works, then that's the way the church needs to work. And so I pose for all of us the question, do we care about the lost?

And I don't mean by that just those who have never heard. That's a great missionary question. Do you care about the lost?

Send bucks so we can send missionaries. Yeah, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about those who belonged to Him and got lost somewhere along the way.

can you think of anybody who used to sit in this room with us who got lost somewhere maybe it was because they just took a wrong turn they followed the wrong sheep a little while and got lost out there. I mean, it was just stupid of them. They made a mistake, but they got lost.

Or it might be that we or I was just careless. Said the wrong thing. Failed to pick up on one of the messages that they were sending.

Somehow we blew it. And they got lost. Or maybe they deliberately rebelled.

Can you think of anybody who deliberately rebelled? Said, thank you very much, but I'm going to go do my thing. And the question is, How do we view those folks?

Do we care? Most of us have a tough enough time greeting the newcomer that happens into our midst. We find it a really tough thing to go after the one who's already been here and gotten lost.

But that's the way the kingdom works. Did you hear what the Word said? There is more joy in heaven over one who repents than over the 99 who didn't need to.

it's so nice isn't it in the midst of the fellowship I mean I love being here with you but what about that one who's out there who's angry and hurting and confused and lost and what about the prodigal Do you realize what you've done? How many people you've hurt? Yeah, you can come back, but boy, are you going to have to pay for it.

Somebody said that the Church of Jesus Christ is the only army in history that buries its wounded. It's not how the Father acted. My son's alive again.

Let's have the biggest party we ever had. Speaks to the clergy. Speaks to our shepherd groups.

Speaks to every one of us. Would you join me in asking that God would put it on our hearts to be sensitive to those who need to come back again. Give us opportunity to cross paths with them and if it doesn't come naturally to go out of our way, leave the ninety and nine and go find the one and say we love you and one lost is too many.

Let's bow our heads together. Lord Jesus thank You that You loved me enough to come for me I pray that You'd give me a love for others that would be no less diligent for Your name's sake Amen