CONVERSATION STARTERS
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource to you. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.

In Ecclesiastes 5:8-20, the Teacher talks about how to steward the wealth that God blesses us with during our lives. Throughout these verses, he says the accumulation of wealth and resources can be meaningless since we cannot take them with us. But, he also points to the blessing that comes when God allows us to enjoy the wealth He has given to us.

1. What stood out to you from Sunday’s sermon?

2. Read Ecclesiastes 5:8-20. Was there a part that especially stung as you read it? Talk about it together.

3. What can you do to maximize your joy in the good gifts God has given you?

4. In what ways does our culture glorify and or demonize wealth? How do you struggle with glorifying or demonizing wealth?

5. What can you remember about what Jesus said about wealth? (see Luke 12:13-21 for one example). How are you living this out?

PRAYER PROMPT
Thank God for the wealth that He has given you. Pray that He would lead you away from putting your ultimate hope in your wealth or financial resources. Also, pray that the Lord would give you the grace to enjoy the wealth He has blessed you with and use it to help the poor and marginalized around you.

Title: Wealth Up in Smoke
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 5:8-20
Speaker: Nathan Miller, NathanM@cckc.church

"I love money. I love everything about it. I bought some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks. Got a fur sink. An electric dog polisher. A gasoline powered turtleneck sweater. And, of course, I bought some dumb stuff, too." - Steve Martin

"I made my money the old-fashioned way. I was very nice to a wealthy relative right before he died." - Malcolm Forbes

"My formula for success is rise early, work late and strike oil." - JP Getty

"Insofar as there is a lesson in history, it's that human beings are not good with large sums of money, anything over $136." - James Grant

> If you look to money for rest it will only leave you restless.

> The more you have, the more you want.

> The more you have, the more you need.

> The more you have, the more you lose.

> The more you have, the more you leave behind.

> Grateful Enjoyment

"Gratitude is not something we give to God because he wants to make sure we know how much trouble he went to over us. Gratitude is the gift God gives us that enables us to be blessed by all his other gifts, the way our taste buds enable us to enjoy the gift of food. Without gratitude, our lives degenerate into envy, dissatisfaction, and complaints, taking what we have for granted and always wanting more.
- John Ortberg, When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box

> Generous Living