Treasure

Jordan Tkacsik was perusing his friend Paul Bartlett’s sports memorabilia and trading card shop last year when he noticed something unusual in a section full of Pokémon collectibles.

It was a Cheetos cheese puff, but not just any Cheeto. Rather, it was a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto that bore an uncanny resemblance to Charizard, an orange dragon-like creature that is one of the Pokémon universe’s original and most beloved characters. The Cheeto itself was housed in a small plastic container, and the three-inch cheesy treat even had a name: Cheetozard.

Mr. Tkacsik was not exactly a Pokémon aficionado, but he knew it was an unusual item. So he made it his mission to build a case for the puff and get it ready for sale.

Still, Mr. Tkacsik had no way of knowing that Cheetozard was bound for global celebrity. In March 2025, the dragon-shaped snack sold at auction for $72,000 (plus fees that pushed the price to nearly $90,000) amid a bidding frenzy. Yep, that’s right, a “Flamin’ Hot” snack with an uncanny resemblance to a fire-breathing Pokémon was a hit on the auction block.

An elderly woman went exploring near her village in Romania. From a stream bed, she pulled a 7.7 lb. (3.5 kg.) rock which looked to her like an average stone. Without much further thought, she took it home and used it as a door stop where it sat for decades. Then she died.

When Elena, her relative inherited the house, she wondered if the rock might be a semi-precious stone. She sold the rock to the Romanian state who had it evaluated by specialists at a Polish museum. The experts assessed this unusual stone as the "world's largest Rumanite amber nugget." It's now recognized as a Romanian national treasure worth over a million dollars! But the elder Romanian woman died having no idea her doorstop made her rich! (Note: Ironically, burglars had broken into the elder woman's house and stolen a few small pieces of gold jewelry but had completely missed the precious amber doorstop!)

Isn't this how we tend to view the fantastic spiritual riches God gives us in salvation?

Stradivarius musical instruments are renowned worldwide as some of the greatest ever shaped by the hand of man. Of the roughly 1,000 violins, cellos, guitars, and others that Antonio Stradivari created in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, only 650 exist today and are only played by world-class musicians.

So, you’d think people might be careful with them.

According to an official at Spain’s Royal Palace in Madrid, a Stradivarius cello worth more than $20 million has been damaged. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo explained that the prized cello broke after falling off a table during a photo shoot.

No details were released as to how the cello fell off the table, in what manner it was damaged or the identity of the butterfingers who dropped it. But according to the report, a piece that joins the neck to cello’s body broke and fell off. According to the Daily Mail, the palace official said the broken piece was a replacement installed in the 19th century and will be repaired.

Possible Preaching Angle:

You'd think that when you're dealing with something that valuable, you'd treat it according to its incredible worth. But unfortunately, this is how some spouses treat each other. One command in Scripture says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers” (1 Pet. 3:7).

At a waste-management facility in Morrisville, Pa., workers load incinerated trash into industrial machinery that separates and sorts metals, then sends them to get hosed down. The reward: buckets of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.

Americans toss as much as $68 million worth of change each year, according to Reworld. The sustainable-waste processing company is on a treasure-hunt to find it. The company says that in the seven years since it started the effort, it has collected at least $10 million worth of coins. Many coins are also getting left behind. At airport checkpoints, the Transportation Security Administration collects hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of them each year. Coins are left in couch cushions or cars, then sucked into vacuums and sent to landfills.

Sometimes these small, seemingly unvalued coins can add up to a treasure—or even a work of art. For instance, Sara and Justin Ilse finished building a floor for their home’s 230-square-foot entryway out of 65,507 pennies.

“It was a way to encase something that doesn’t get viewed with much value in daily life,” Justin said. More than 20,000 of the pennies came from jars that Sara’s father and brother-in-law kept in their closets. They bought the rest of the pennies they needed in 2,500 increments through their local bank. In addition to the $655 they spent on pennies, they also spent $1,195 on supplies such as glue and epoxy.

Possible Preaching Angles:

(1) Mercy; Compassion – small good works of mercy or compassion can have a huge impact and be valuable in our Lord’s eyes; (2) Spiritual gifts—our gifts may seem insignificant, under-valued, but combined with the gifts of others in the church, they can create something beautiful, (3) Giving, Generosity—like the widow’s mite, Jesus sees and values small gifts given with great sacrifice.

Susan Mettes, Associate Editor at CT magazine, writes:

I have a clear early memory of first learning to ride a bike. When I had finally found enough balance for a few seconds of forward movement, my beloved brother toddled into my path. There was plenty of room for both of us on the sidewalk, but I mowed the little guy down and we both fell onto the lawn, sobbing.

Now I know that the reason I couldn’t avoid him was something called “target fixation,” which means that we aim for what we’re focusing on—no matter how much we consciously try to avoid it.

Jesus keeps telling us to take our eyes off money. In many places—including in the church today—we see people falling into the trap of requiring more and more of it to feel good. But on the flip side, we too often think that the change we must make is from lusting after money to avoiding money. However, thrift can also become a target we fixate on, disorienting us, and leading us to crash right back into Mammon.

Jesus’ words to his followers showed his disapproval of hoarding money, making wealth the capstone of a life, and believing that money will make us safe. But we sometimes miss another aspect of Jesus’ teachings: the importance of where we focus our attention.

As Christians around the world live through a period of discomfort in their household budgets, even thrift can bring them dangerously close to the errors often attributed to greed. Thrift can make austerity seem like a virtue for all times.

One story of the early church says that a fourth-century monk, Macarius, got a bunch of grapes and sent them to another monk, who sent them to another, and so on. Each craved the grapes, but none ate them. They eventually returned to Macarius, who still didn’t eat them. The monks had proved their ability to deny themselves.

Such denial can be a response to a belief that possessions are hot potatoes, things to be divested of before they ruin us. But far from solving an obsession with money and possessions, this form of living on as little as possible can result in miserliness.

Author Lucinda Kinsinger says, “If you’re focusing on thrift for the sake of being thrifty, you’ll just end up being a tightwad. If our focus is being a good steward, then we’re in a good place.”

In a remarkable twist of fate, a couple from Bowling Green, Kentucky experienced the rare joy of winning the lottery twice—first by winning the prize and then by finding their lost ticket.

In November, the Kentucky Lottery announced that Mark Perdue and his wife were the winners of $50,000. Mark Perdue recalled the moment when he realized he won, recalling the store owner's words of congratulations.

“I said, ‘For what?’ And she said, ‘You won the lottery.’ I said, ‘I wish.’ She said, ‘You did, I have you on video.’”

However, the Perdue’s rejoicing turned to despair when they couldn’t find the ticket. Despite their best efforts, the ticket remained missing for several days, leading them to believe it had been accidentally discarded. His wife said, “I’ve been beating myself up for three months thinking I threw this ticket away.”

However, the story took a fortunate turn three months later in February. Mark was inspecting a company car, and found the ticket. He rarely does such inspections, but a visitor needed transportation, which prompted it.

“I don’t know how long it might have sat out there if I hadn’t needed the car,” he mused. The discovery left him visibly shaken.

With the ticket finally in hand, the couple visited the lottery headquarters the next day, and received a check for $36,000 after taxes. Reflecting on their plans for the money, the couple expressed a desire to clear debts and perhaps celebrate their good fortune with a trip.

Possible Preaching Angle:

You should use caution in using this illustration because it is not intended to encourage anyone to play the lottery. But, this does illustrate the elation of those who find what they believe was irretrievably lost, such as woman who found the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10).

A tourist in Las Vegas hit the jackpot on a slot machine, but he was never informed due to a malfunction in the machine, according to gaming officials. Now after an exhaustive search, the Nevada Gaming Control Board says they have identified the winner of the nearly $230,000 prize.

A man, later identified by officials as Robert Taylor, played a slot machine at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. Due to a communications error, according to gaming officials, the slot machine malfunctioned and didn't notify Taylor or casino personnel that he was a winner. By the time the error was noticed, casino personnel were unable to identify the man, who was from out of state. The gaming board took on an exhaustive search to make sure the man would be awarded his prize.

To identify the winner, gaming officials combed through hours of surveillance videos from several casinos, interviewed witnesses, sifted through electronic purchase records, and even analyzed ride share data provided by the Nevada Transportation Authority and a rideshare company. The jackpot winner was determined to be Taylor, a tourist from Arizona.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We too are the inheritors of a great wealth, the Kingdom of God, but we go through life living unaware. How would it change the way we live today if we truly understand the vast riches of tomorrow?

Rich Gilson and his wife, Suzanne, purchased a house in Wildwood, New Jersey, about four years ago, and they have been working on additions and renovations to the home during that time. Gilson, who works in home inspections and renovations, was able to start working on the driveway of the house in the area in front of the home’s garage.

Gilson said, “So I start digging. I’m hitting concrete. I'm hitting rock. I'm hitting glass. Then I found these two things, and they look like root balls. I throw them in the soil pile, both of them, thinking they’re just roots.”

As he continued his work outside on Sunday, he came across one of the cylindrical objects again. “I pick it up, and I'm thinking what is this? Why are these things following me, right? I look at the edge, and I think ‘I can see something there.' It looked like paper. So, I started tugging at the edge, and I knew immediately what it was. I thought ‘this is money.’”

The money was wrapped in brown paper. Gilson and his wife began pulling the cylinder apart, and it amounted to rolls of $10 and $20 bills, totaling $1,000. That money would have been worth a lot more at the time: $1,000 in 1934 is the equivalent of more than $22,000 today when accounting for inflation, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gilson said, “So I start to think, OK, either somebody robbed a bank because all these bills came from the same lot,” or he believes that someone may have taken their money out of a bank during the Great Depression in the U.S.

Gilson added that he’s still curious about the money’s story, where it came from and whether someone simply forgot about it. He also hopes that people who see his discovery don’t come looking for more of the money. Gilson said, “Please don’t come to my house with a shovel. I’m trying to finish the house, not make more work for myself.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story brings to life Christ's parable of the treasure buried in a field. Like the kingdom of heaven, sometimes the most precious things in the world are hidden from view for a while. God has surprising hidden treasure which only the diligent can find. The kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:44), godly wisdom (Prov. 2:3-5), and the Word of God (Jer. 15:16) are waiting to be discovered by the earnest seeker.

A small bowl bought for just $35 at a yard sale in Connecticut has turned out to be a rare 15th-Century Chinese artefact. The white porcelain bowl was spotted by an unidentified antiques enthusiast near New Haven last year, and they quickly sought an expert evaluation.

The experts came back with good news, revealing that the bowl is thought to be worth between $300,000 and $500,000. In fact, it is believed to be one of only seven such bowls in existence and most of the others are in museums.

Angela McAteer, an expert on Chinese ceramics said, "It was immediately apparent to us that we were looking at something really very, very special. The style of painting, the shape of the bowl, even just the color of the blue is quite characteristic of that early, early 15th-Century … Ming [Dynasty] period.”

How exactly the bowl found itself being sold at a Connecticut outdoor sale remains a mystery. Some have suggested it may have been passed down through generations of the same family.

"It's always quite astounding to think that it still happens, that these treasures can be discovered," McAteer said. "It's always really exciting for us as specialists when something we didn't even know existed here appears seemingly out of nowhere."

Possible Preaching Angle:

God often hides great value behind the veil of the ordinary: 1) Deity of Christ; Humanity of Christ; Messiah - The deity of Christ was cloaked in humanity when he was born in a stable (Isa. 53:2-3; Luke 2:7); 2) Human worth; Insignificance; Small Things - The “ordinary” people in our churches have hidden value (1 Cor. 1:27; Jam. 2:5).

Stefan Thomas, a programmer in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth about $220 million. The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin.

The problem is that years ago Mr. Thomas lost the paper where he wrote down the password for his IronKey, which gives users 10 guesses before it seizes up and encrypts its contents forever. He has since tried eight of his most commonly used password formulations—to no avail. Thomas said, “I would just lay in bed and think about it. Then I would go to the computer with some new strategy, and it wouldn’t work, and I would be desperate again.”

Bitcoin has made a lot of its holders very rich in a short time. But the cryptocurrency’s unusual nature has also meant that many people are locked out of their Bitcoin fortunes as a result of lost or forgotten keys. They have been forced to watch, helpless, as the price has risen and fallen sharply, unable to cash in on their digital wealth.

Of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent—currently worth around $140 billion—appear to be in lost or stranded wallets. Brad Yasar has put his hard drives, containing millions of dollars in Bitcoin, in vacuum-sealed bags out of sight. He said, “I don’t want to be reminded every day … of what I lost.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This sad story is in sharp contrast with the security of our inheritance that is guaranteed in heaven. “An inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Pet. 1:4).

A tourist was once travelling through the area where the famed Rabbi Hofetz Chaim was living. Being a great admirer of the rabbi, he made inquiries whether he could visit the rabbi at his home. He soon got a reply that he was welcome to visit the rabbi anytime.

The young tourist thereafter arrived at the rabbi’s home with much excitement. Upon reaching the simple one-roomed house, he was asked to enter. Upon entering, to his amazement he saw only a table, a lamp and a cot, besides many books, inside the house. Surprised by what he saw, the tourist then inquired, “Rabbi, where is the rest of your furniture?” Rabbi Chaim calmly replied, “Where is yours?” Puzzled by the rabbi’s response, the tourist replied, “My furniture? But I’m only a visitor here.” The wise rabbi then replied, “So am I.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

The young tourist learned the valuable and powerful lesson that day that God's people are only pilgrims on this earth. As Jim Reeves wrote in a song, “This world is not our home.” Peter addresses the Christians as, “foreigners and aliens” (1 Peter 2:11). Therefore, since we are “foreigners and strangers on earth” (Heb. 11:13), the Apostle Paul advises us, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:2).

Clark Cothern, in a sermon titled “Joyfully Rescued,” talks about the inheritance promised by God to his children:

Mom kept saying, “After I’m gone, keep your eyes out for the gold.” My sister and I chalked this admonition up to a little memory loss. But, just in case, we kept our eyes open. As we sorted through Mom’s things shortly after she went to heaven. We looked under drawers, behind cabinets; anywhere we thought she might have hidden some gold, but we didn’t really expect to find any.

Then I went to Mom’s bank to get the life insurance policy from her safety deposit box. In a tiny privacy room, all by myself, I opened the long narrow metal box. Under the life insurance policy was a brown paper lunch bag. There was a rubber band wrapped around it which crumbled into tiny pieces because it was so old. I opened the crinkly paper sack. There were two, 3-inch long rolls of gold coins. I laughed out loud.

As you can imagine the contents of that lunch bag were extremely valuable. My sister and I used that money to help us prepare Mom’s house for market. That gold was still just as shiny as the day Mom had purchased it over 40 years earlier. And it was a lot more valuable than the day it had been purchased. It had been kept safe for my sister and me, as part of our inheritance. We hadn’t done anything to earn it and yet it now belonged to us.

Peter tells us in 1 Peter 1:4 that our spiritual inheritance, worth far more than gold, will one day be ours. Our inheritance will never decay or fade. It is growing more valuable the older we get. Jesus Christ did all the work for it and then banked it in heaven where he is keeping it safe.

The largest buried treasure find in America, known as the Saddle Ridge hoard, was discovered in February 2013. A couple who owned the property were walking their dog in the morning. They spotted what appeared to be a rusted portion of a can and decided to unearth it. The rusted and deformed can was unusually heavy as if it were filled with iron or lead. The can was so heavy that while taking it back to their house, the lid of the can cracked open and revealed glistening gold coins! Not the sort of thing that you stumble across on the average day!

After that first can, the couple went back to the site to dig up the land in search of more cans filled with coins. Eventually, they unearthed a total of eight cans throughout their property on Saddle Ridge. After their discovery, the couple protected their find by hiding it in an old ice chest, then burying it under a pile of wood.

The hoard has a total of 1,411 gold coins with a total face value of $27,980. The actual value of the coins has been estimated to stand at a whopping $10 million dollars. The secret origin of the largest buried treasure find in America remain a mystery to this day.

Possible Preaching Angle: God also has surprising hidden treasure which only the diligent can find. The kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:44), godly wisdom (Prov. 2:3-5), and the Word of God (Jer. 15:16) are waiting to be discovered by the earnest seeker.

Because of the tenacious attention to detail of a public servant, a woman was reunited with her wedding ring after nine years.

In 2009, Paula Stanton was given a ring by her husband Michael to celebrate their twentieth anniversary, but it slipped off her fingers and she was left to conclude it had been accidentally flushed down the toilet. “It had been a little big on my finger, because it was winter time and my hands were smaller,” Stanton said. “I felt so bad about it. Sad and embarrassed.”

So distraught was she that three years later, when the public works department was doing some work on the sewer line, she alerted one of their workers to the possibility that her ring might be somewhere in the piping.

Public employee Ted Gogol had previously heard about the ring, and just happened to be doing some recent maintenance work by the Stanton house when he saw something glittery in the mud next to a manhole cover. Gogol reached out to Stanton, and after a boiling treatment of lemon juice and peroxide, the ring is back on her finger where it belongs. “People say around this time of year crazy things happen,” Gogol said. “She said it was her Christmas miracle.”

Potential Preaching Angles:

Wayward loved ones are never too far gone for God to redeem; even those who society has deemed as unclean can be redeemed and found again.

In Giving It All Away David Green relates that Bob Hoskins, a missionary pioneer who along with his son Rob founded the outstanding ministry called OneHope, tells a story about his early days of living in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War broke out and conditions deteriorated rapidly. The downtown area, previously an oasis for business and culture, became a no-man's land called the Green Line. Bob remembers the night the US embassy called to say they were evacuating all nonessential Americans as soon as possible.

Bob says, "My family and I threw things into suitcases and headed out. I stood there at the apartment door with the key in my hand, taking one last look at all our furniture, our personal treasures, the special carvings I had received as gifts when I'd been preaching in various countries of Africa and Asia. I thought to myself, I wonder if I'll ever see any of this again."

The Hoskinses returned to America for a number of months, and then eventually returned to their home in Lebanon. Bob says, "We came back with our hearts in our throats that day, headed up the stairs, turned the key in the lock, opened the door … and sighed with relief. Everything was exactly as we had left it! Our prayers had been answered. We were home again."

A few years later, they had to evacuate the Beirut a second time. Once again the family packed up quickly and left their apartment behind. When the smoke of battle cleared, they returned as they had before, climbing the stairs, turning the key in the lock. This time, though, their home had been destroyed. Couches and beds lay broken, dishes were smashed, and irreplaceable souvenirs were demolished or missing. Their belongings were no more.

Bob concluded his story with a challenge: "Hold the things of this world very lightly. They may be there for you to enjoy tomorrow or they may not. The Bible says, 'We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.' Live with an open hand before God; it's the only way in a dangerous, unpredictable world."