Out of the Precarious Zone | Mar. 08, 2026 | Pr Raph

Out of the Precarious Zone

A researcher led a session with about 50 people in the room. They "circled up" to go around and have each person say something about their relationship with money. Every single person was in a state of fear regarding money.

An 80-year-old person had millions of dollars but was still terrified in the same way a 20-year-old would be. A young person who was already $20,000 in debt and felt the same terror.

Why? Because even if you have a high-paying or "significant" job, most people live continuously in the precarious zone, with no savings and nowhere to go.

This is not right for the children of God.

It is time to take control of our financial lives.

To declare we are children of God, and the only Lord of our lives is Jesus, not money.

Matthew 6:24 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

It is time to come to rest on the absolute sufficiency of God’s grace.

We live in a world that constantly pressures us to build our kingdoms here on earth, to trust in our bank accounts. 

Money is a lord, a master, and it is trying to rule your life, but it does not have to be.

God’s will for His children is financial freedom.

Financial Freedom.

I define "financial freedom” today as the transition from being a "slave" to the economy to becoming the kind of person who owns their emotions regarding money.

Individually and as the lead pastor of our church, we are facing one of the hardest time on our finances. For weeks, very few of the brothers have been able to participate with their tithes, which has created a financial disruption in our church.

However, as we are in this hardship now, the Lord wants His children to remain firm in His promises and in a state of constant peace.

Hebrews 13:5-6 "Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6' So we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'"

The supply for the church's needs does not come from human effort or anxious people, but from the "limitless goodness" and the abundant overflow of God.

Philippians 4:19 "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

The Father knows our needs before we ask and provides from His self-sufficient spring of life.

But in a time of shortage, we must face the fact that some of us have developed bad habits that must be confronted.

The waste slavery

A few weeks ago, a brother asked me about financial advice. He received an offer to purchase an asset. As always, “It was a lifetime opportunity, that promotion would never come back again, and so forth.” What he said was not needed at the time. He did not have the money, only a pledge of someone else that would pay for that purchase. And that is what I call “waste slavary” 

That's when we spend money we haven’t earned to buy things we don’t need, trapping ourselves in a cycle of working just to pay off those debts.

Galatians 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

The context here is the slavery of the law and the ceremonial codes. Christ’s finished work has completely and eternally liberated us from the fear of owing God something, that we are short of pleasing God because there is an “invoice open” between the Lord and us. But “ for freedom Christ has set us free.” 

But this glorious freedom is meant to touch every area of our lives, including our finances.

But we also need to be free from consumerism.

Under that “slavery,” you are controlled by the economy rather than your God-given purpose.

The economy and the "anxious process of more" to run your life.

It is the "anxious process of more" dictating our lives. And that is also submitting to a heavy yoke once again.

We are already complete and fully accepted in Christ; we do not need to find our identity or our comfort in an endless cycle of getting more.

It is an illusion to think that acquiring more stuff would bring peace and status. Instead, it puts us in a pair of financial handcuffs.

Many are perpetual servants to credit card companies, running endlessly on a treadmill of debt just to maintain a lifestyle they no longer have the time or energy to enjoy.

A house with a clubhouse you don’t go to. A gym membership you don’t use. A boat you parked, paying storage fees with no use. An expensive bike that you don’t find time to ride.

Today, you can be deeply satisfied by the love of our Heavenly Father so that you can step off the exhausting treadmill of “I need to buy more.” 

We can stand firm in our freedom, live intentionally, rest in His grace, and use our resources generously for His eternal purpose.

The righteous shall live by faith, and today I want to remind you about that.

The Title deed

(Hebrews 11:1) "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

ὑπόστασις –Hupóstasis — A title deed. A guarantee. The underlying substance.

Faith is the spiritual title deed that guarantees our heavenly inheritance.

That faith frees us from the love and fear of money.

Many take the faith preaching to be about having more money to buy more stuff. However, true faith, as described in Hebrews chapter 11, frees us from attachment to and meaningless craving.

The real value of money

Money is, in a very real sense, a reflection of your life energy.

It is the direct exchange of the limited time you spent earning it.

When you exchange your precious days just to chase money to buy things you do not need, you are essentially trading your life for vapor.

(Ecclesiastes 5:10) 'He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity.’

In that sense, "financial independence" is the process of reclaiming that precious time and giving it to the right master of your life. 

You must be able to actually answer the question of who you are outside of your job or your “stuff".

True faith sets us free from possessions to identity.

Hebrews 11:8-10 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

The Holy Spirit is making you grow in faith, so your heart can be free from attachment to this world.

A faith that frees you from the love of things.

Debt-free life

It is time to stop buying more stuff—things we really don’t need to impress people who don’t even care.

We are called to identify ourselves by what Christ has done and who we are according to the new covenant.

We are God's people.

Hebrews 11:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

We are so loved by our Heavenly Father that we can confidently leave behind the weary race of defining ourselves by what we own.

In the next few months, as many of you are dealing with your taxes, aim to be debt-free. 

It can take a month. 6 months. A year or two. But it all starts with one step.

The first step to getting out of debt is to stop getting yourself more into debt.

That means spend less.

The only way to find out where you are spending, and probably wasting, what you can't, is to keep a record of your expenses.

Use your debit cards to make it easy.

Your bank keeps a record of all your expenses.

Research shows that when people pay attention to the flow of money and "stuff" in their lives and become conscious of their spending, their consumption naturally drops by about 20% to 25%.

Think like this: every cent is a unit of “my life.”

That will force me to ask:

"Is this purchase worth the hours of my life I spent to get it?" 

This turns every financial transaction into a purposeful choice and reminds us of our true value. 

The problem is that many people don't even remember what they spent money on.

So, maybe it is only a matter of learning where you are spending.

Many people, once they become aware of their spending, often react with surprise, saying, "Oh, I'm spending less, and wonder how that change happened.” 

The reason why many don’t want to be aware of their spending is that we often use stuff as a shield to avoid deep "gut-level emotional feelings” as a psychological distraction or a substitute for addressing our actual human needs.

Luke 8:14 14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

Instead of dealing with the existential truth that life on this side of heaven is unpredictable and precarious, we tell ourselves, “While I can still buy that last gadget, life is good.” 

Many use the pursuit of money to avoid facing the fear of their own lack of control over the future.

But did you know that happiness increases simply by moving from "unconscious spending" to a state of awareness? 

The key is simply to pay attention and ask yourself whether a purchase genuinely brings fulfillment.

That is beyond happiness.

Buy true happiness

When the Holy Spirit opens your eyes, you will gladly cut up the credit cards.

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

So many of us confuse the worth of things with people’s worth.

It is like my little niece, who has no concept of financial value. She gladly accepted my offer to trade her a twenty-dollar bill in exchange for five one-dollar bills. Why? Because she did not understand true value. 

When we cling to earthly wealth and refuse to invest in God's eternal kingdom, we are trading our twenty-dollar bills for ones. We are exchanging the eternal for the temporary.

In a survey, Michael Norton, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, found that spending on "stuff" for yourself has a flat correlation with happiness, whereas spending on experiences or on others significantly boosts your joy.

And lots of research over the last decade has shown that, on average, buying experiences tend to pay off in more happiness than buying stuff for yourself.

Often, when we buy stuff for ourselves, we end up with it by ourselves.

Honestly, how we spend and give our money tells the story of what we truly value.

In a sense your money revelas your Autobiography.

Think of being alone on your phone playing a game, but when you go out—dinner, movie, hike—you're with others.

It turns out that talking to other people makes us happy. Even casual interactions with other people make us happier than sitting by ourselves.

So yeah, money can buy happiness if you learn to use it as a tool.

From Craving to Contribution

1 Timothy 6:10 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

God has called His people to be debt-free and money-love-free.

God has called us to prosperity, even in times of drought and famine. 

That was always the case with the men and women of faith.

I define prosperity as “To have, in abundance, all that you need to fulfill God’s purpose in your life.” 

But Today I will define differently.

Prosperity is the "sweet spot" of happiness shared with others once you have learned to have always enough to participate.”

That means participate with your church tithes and offerings.

That means contributing to your Lifegroup.

That means not restricting the giving of that ride. 

Treating a friend to lunch.

Buying gifts for loved ones.

Let God's grace be the anchor for your joy, leading you out of fear and debt, and into the joyous, generous freedom of the New Covenant.

In Real prosperity

Once your survival state is handled, where needs are met, your money and the time it represents should be used to fulfill your sense of purpose and values.

Rather than focusing on "how much you have," the book emphasizes "how much you let flow through you.”

The idea is to shift from a "scarcity" mentality to a "Kingdom" mentality.

There are plenty of resources out there that can actually help you enter this place.

Dave Ramsey is the one we recommend, but also “The Generous Life: Giving Meaning to Your Money, by Rob Ketterling.

Giving is a privilege, not an obligation: the book reframes tithing and giving as a "get to" rather than a "have to." It suggests that generosity is an act of worship that connects you to God's heart.

Matthew 6:21"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”