Going After God's Hidden Treasures

Let me start with a statement that might unsettle you. True or false: a person who is unsaved is not a bad person. Or put it more sharply. True or false: you who are saved are not one bit better in God's eyes than someone who is not.

Here is how to settle it. The value of a thing is set by what someone is willing to pay for it, by the market price. If I pay a hundred for one item and a hundred for another, which is more valuable? They are worth the same. So if Adolf Hitler cost God the life of Jesus, and you cost God the life of Jesus, who is more valuable to God? Sit with that for a moment.

You and that coworker whose lifestyle you despise are of the same value. You and the person of another faith you pray against are of the same value. You and your neighbor. God paid the same price for all. So let us finally drop the idea that a saved person is somehow worth more than a lost one.

Found and still lost

If we are of equal value, then what is the difference between us? Only this: one is a treasure that has been found, and the other is a treasure that is still lost, still hidden in the dark. And in a sense the lost one may be even more precious right now, because the Owner is not yet enjoying the thing He already paid for.

Get the order right, because we almost always get it backwards. You are not the apple of His eye because He saved you. He saved you because you were already the apple of His eye. You are not a vessel of honor because He saved you. He saved you because you were a vessel of honor. You are not a son because He saved you. He saved you because you were a son who had gotten lost. That is why Scripture can call people who are still unsaved “sons and daughters of disobedience.” They are sons and daughters. They are just lost.

From the foundation of the world He made you holy and acceptable in the Beloved. Then you got lost. You became a treasure hidden in darkness. And Jesus came searching for you, to find the very treasures the Father had promised Him.

I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the LORD, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.

Isaiah 45:3 (NKJV)

That is the mission in one sentence. “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). To save something lost is simply to find it. And Jesus painted exactly this picture.

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Matthew 13:44 (NKJV)

The treasure was buried in an ordinary field, in a place no one was looking, and He sold all He had for it. This world is that field. Hidden in the darkness of it are treasures, and He gave everything to buy the whole field so He could have them.

Rich toward God

Jesus once spoke of a man who stored up wealth for himself but was “not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). Here is a way to understand that phrase. You are not truly rich toward God until you have treasures that were once hidden in darkness. The person is richest who has nothing of this world to offer God except the souls of lost people he has helped to find.

Every time I think about this I think about my mom. She was a teacher, she taught integrated science, and in those days teachers were paid almost nothing, the equivalent of about twenty dollars a month. To make ends meet, most teachers ran after-school tutorials for extra pay. My parents sent me to plenty of them. But not my mom. She used those hours to teach an after-school Bible club for children, Wednesdays at six and Sunday evenings at the gym.

She could never replace her old Renault. She could hardly afford bread, so she baked at home, and we drank soy milk. But she is far richer today than the teachers who tutored physics and science for cash. Out of that little Bible club came pastors, pastors' wives, deacons, and evangelists. They were treasures hidden in darkness, and when she had the chance, she chose to help them be found.

You are the light they see by

So what is our job? It is beautifully simple: to shine light on the path of the lost so they can see how valuable they are to God. That is why Jesus calls us the light of the world. Light exists to reveal things hidden in the dark. In the parable of the lost coin, the woman lights a lamp and sweeps until she finds it. Guess who that lamp is. You and I.

You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Matthew 5:14-15 (NKJV)

How do we shine? We relate to people as treasures, not as trash. We announce to them who they really are, loved by God. We drop the holier-than-thou posture the church so often carries, as though we are not touched by the same struggles that touch them. We help them see we are not different from them. The only difference is that we have been found, and they are still looking, but they can be found too. We do good to them. We welcome them. We accept them. We look past the mess and say, I love you.

Go treasure hunting

This is not a side project. We must actively go treasure hunting, because there is no work of higher priority than finding God's treasures and bringing them home. Jesus said He came to seek and to save the lost. If you are not doing any of that, look honestly at your hours. Count how many go to chasing stuff. Then count how many go to finding the people God treasures.

And understand this about everyone who walks through the doors of a church: each one is a treasure. They may come in reeking of alcohol or weed. They may come in with a partner they are not married to. They may come carrying an addiction to porn, to drugs, to lust. They may come with mental and emotional wounds you cannot see. Woe to us if we treat them as garbage instead of treasure.

These are God's treasures, hidden inside the mess they are in, but treasures all the same, every bit as valuable as the brother or sister who looks prim and proper and seems to have no issues. In fact, in one sense, more valuable, because they are still lost, still hidden. They are not bad. They are only lost.

This is also why it matters where we bring them. What good is it to go out, shine as light, help someone discover who they are to God, and then walk them into a church that treats them like trash and makes them feel like nothing? We are not perfect yet. But I can tell you we have left that place. We have not arrived, but we have left.

If you are the one who feels lost

Maybe you are reading this and you are the lost one. You feel like you are in no man's land. You feel like nothing but a pile of mistakes. Hear the good news carefully: you are a treasure. You are just lost in the dark for now, and today you can be found.

There is no shame in that. Who has ever been ashamed of being found, of finding their way home after being lost? So if you want to be found, pray something this simple, and mean it: “Lord Jesus, I feel lost. I feel like I have lost my way. But I know You came to search for me and find me. Here I am. Let Your grace find me today. In Jesus' name.” If that is your prayer, then step out of the dark and into the light. You are not garbage. You are treasure, and you have been found.