Philippians 3:1-11 - The Gospel Safeguard

Tom Shrader expounds on Philippians 3:1-11, where Paul warns against the Judaizers who added works to the gospel. Paul lists his impressive religious credentials - circumcision, Hebrew heritage, Pharisee status, zeal in persecuting the church, and blameless law-keeping - but counts them all as rubbish compared to knowing Christ. The apostle demonstrates that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone, not through human religious achievement or effort.

“The gospel is not just something that puts me in right relationship with Christ, it's what keeps me there, so I need to preach the gospel to myself every day.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Philippians

Recorded: November 03, 2016

Duration: 38 min

Themes: salvation, grace, pride, humility, works, faith, joy, righteousness, struggling with pride, new believer, religious background, feeling inadequate, pastor, seeking acceptance, performance driven, spiritual perfectionist

Scripture: Philippians 3:1-11, Philippians 1:27, Matthew 7:13-23, 2 Corinthians 13:5, Amos 3:2, Acts 9

Theological Themes: justification, sola fide, faith alone, sanctification, legalism, works righteousness, gospel, soteriology

Full Transcript

All right, if you have your Bibles, open them to the book of Philippians chapter 3. Let me tell you where we're going with this today. We are going to look at the first 11 verses of Philippians chapter 3 today, and then next week we'll look at 12, 13, 14. I would encourage you to read ahead. This is one of those passages that would be fun for you to read ahead, look at it, have a little piece of paper, make some notes, some observations of what you see, and then we'll put that together next week.

Paul's Transition to a Crucial Theme

Philippians chapter 3 verse 1 begins with the word "finally." It is not a word that leads to conclusion but it's a transition. It could be translated also "furthermore," "so then," or "now then." There's a hundred and fifty times in the New Testament. What Paul's doing here—and we talked about it last week—I don't know that I've ever taught a book where I've seen that a theme developed all the way through the book. This is a continuation of that. Paul said "finally," so he's drawing us to conclusion.

Remember we said last week back to chapter 1 verse 27, Paul says "only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel so that whether I come and see you or remain absent I may hear that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind striving together for faith in the gospel." Paul's saying if you truly want to get to a spot where you're representing God in the world then your mission is to think about other people not about yourself.

The Call to Rejoice and the Safeguard

He says "finally," now drawing to conclusion, "finally my brethren rejoice in the Lord." There's the overarching statement. My joy is not in victory or defeat, my joy is not in anything but in Christ. "To write the same things again is no trouble to me and it's a safeguard for you."

Now I can tell you for me personally I derive great pleasure from Paul saying we're going to talk about the same thing yet again. Tim Mohn is the gentleman that took my place teaching on Sunday and last week we were talking and he said to me, "Did you ever feel like you were saying the same thing over and over again on a Sunday?" I said over 22 years I felt that every week. Sandy's teaching a Monday morning Bible study and she said to me the other day, "I feel like I'm teaching the same thing every week." Now it just so happens that she too is teaching the book of Philippians and I said there's a reason you feel that way and Paul just told you why in chapter 3 verse 1 because you're saying the same thing every week.

What Paul's talking about here today is a safeguard. Let me read you these 11 verses all at once—you can follow along. I'm going to read from a paraphrase Eugene Peterson:

The Message Paraphrase of Philippians 3:1-11

"And that's about it, friends. Be glad in God! I don't mind repeating what I've written in earlier letters, and I hope you don't mind hearing it again. Better safe than sorry, so here goes.

Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they're interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ praises as we do it. We couldn't be carried off by their own efforts, and we know it, even though we can list what many might consider impressive credentials.

But you know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day, an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin, a strict and devout adherent to God's law, a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church, a meticulous observer of everything set down in God's law book.

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my master firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness.

I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience His resurrection power, be a partner in His suffering, and go all the way with Him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted it."

Understanding the Gospel's Role

So just as you read through that, here's what Paul saying: there's a reversal that's taking place. Living Bible paraphrases verse 1 this way: "Whatever happens, dear friends, be glad in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you this. It's good for you to hear it again and again." What he's talking about is the gospel.

Now one of the mistakes—I was thinking about it as I was driving in today—that I've been with a lot of the younger guys lately and what floats their boat doesn't tend to float mine and what floats my boat doesn't tend to float theirs. I think it's the way God works and in generations and moves. One of the things that we talked about beginning in 1980 when God saved me, we talked about the gospel, but we tend to talk about it in this fashion: that here are people who don't know Christ and they need to hear this thing called the gospel—that we're separated from God not because of Him but because of us. It's called sin and the wage of sin is death. Death means separation—I'm separated from God, but eternal life is found in Christ Jesus. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ, so the gospel would be something that you would encounter.

You'd be with a friend or a co-worker having a crummy cup of coffee at Sambo's in 1980, and you would say, "Do you know Christ?" It would start the discussion, and that's the gospel. You're saved, and the gospel's done.

One of the mistakes I think we made is that was kind of the end of gospel discussion. What Paul's saying is that the gospel is not just something that puts me in right relationship with Christ—it's what keeps me there. So I need to preach the gospel to myself every day. I need to be reminded every day that I am to rejoice in the Lord.

Beware of False Teachers

Paul's now talking about this group. Look at what he says in verse two: "Beware of the dogs." The word that he uses and the idea there—he's not talking about little lapdogs you have. He's talking here about big dogs that would travel in packs, that would attack other animals and sometimes even humans. So he's saying beware of the dogs—it's a picture here.

"Beware of evil workers, beware of the false circumcision." One of Paul's constant enemies were the Judaizers. They were a group of guys that would come around behind Paul, and as Paul preached grace, they would come along and here's what they'd say: "Yes, what Paul said is true as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Yes, you're saved by grace through faith, but to truly be one of God's people, you need to conform to Judaism, including the act of circumcision." This would slow down adult male conversion.

Paul is constantly fighting this. Remember as you read the book of Galatians, even Peter kind of gets sucked into this. So there's this magnificent scene where Paul is going toe-to-toe with Peter and saying, "I don't understand this. You know the grace of this, you know the glory of this. Why would you drift back into it?" Well, that's what this section is all about—Paul saying watch out for these people.

Jesus' Warning About False Prophets

This is not new to Paul. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 7, the last third of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' amazing teaching says in Matthew 7:13, "Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter by it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it."

He says, "Beware of false prophets." It's the same idea—that these people will come in and would alter the gospel. But Jesus seems to put it at a new level. For those of us who say we're Christians, these may be some of the most scary words: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"

There's going to be a whole bunch of people that said, "But we did this in Your name, we were working." You could watch people on direct TV casting out demons and declaring things in the name of the Lord all day long, and they're embarrassing to watch. Now, is that them? I don't know. But there's this group of people that are saying, "Listen, we say we're Christians, look at this," but Jesus says they aren't.

It's a problem that started at the time of Christ and continues, and my assumption is it will until Jesus comes.

True Circumcision of the Heart

Let's go back to Philippians chapter 3 and look at verse 3. So He said, "We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus." It's a circumcision not just of foreskin—it's not an outward sign.

I got a call not long ago from somebody and they said, "I need to get baptized. I've got to get baptized." They were very passionate about being baptized, which is good, and we do that. They said, "I'd like to come over. I'd like to get this done right away." There was an urgency to that. I said, "What's the hurry?" As we spoke, you could see that they felt this baptism was essential for salvation.

Well, I'm not saved by baptism. Do we baptize in our church? Obviously. Do we think it's important? Yeah, we really do. But it's important as a public sign of something that's taken place inwardly. What Paul is talking about is a circumcision of the heart—it's something that takes place inside of us.

Examining Our Faith

Second Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5, Paul writes this: "Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?" That's the question.

I was talking to somebody the other day who's teaching a smaller Bible study of maybe 20 people, and this person was saying to me, "I'm teaching salvation by grace through faith."

These people are really struggling with this concept. Well, let me tell you why that's important. There is no other salvation.

God saved me in 1980, and it was a radical change. I tend to do nothing in moderation. I've done only one thing in moderation in my life, and that's work. Everything else I've been able to do to excess. My Christian faith was that way. If Bible study was good, five a week were better.

Everywhere I went, I started small groups. These would be a group of men who would meet in the morning generally, and it was a Bible study. It was declared a Bible study, was taught as a Bible study, different than this. It was kind of a group effort. In every one of them, there would be four or five guys who, in the process of that year, God would save.

The Danger of Religious Effort

Now here's my point. These were four or five guys who were getting up at some ridiculous hour, bringing a Bible, coming together to a Bible study, and in the course of studying that Bible realized they weren't Christians at all. The reason was, though it may appear to be a stretch, the reason was what Paul's talking about here. They were putting their faith and trust in their own efforts. They were concerned about religion and human achievement.

If you have a smartphone and know how to use it, if you have a smartphone or an iPad, go to Google and search "John Wooden trophies" plural. Don't do singular—you'll get a picture of a trophy that's named after John Wooden. Go to "John Wooden trophies" and then go to image. See what you get there for one of the most amazing pictures I've ever seen. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that picture right there says it.

When you see this picture, it is stunning. It's a picture of Coach Wooden sitting on a stool, and surrounding Him are His trophies. It's His trophies—it's not the UCLA trophy case. It's the trophies that are associated with Him: the national championships, the coach of the year awards, all these things. He hated that picture.

A Personal Encounter with Greatness

When I was preparing to go meet with Him, I had a copy made of that picture. My desire was to get Him to sign it. After three hours, I didn't have the courage. Knowing how much He hated that picture, I didn't have the courage to ask Him to sign it. I did when we were leaving.

He was an amazing man. When I'm on Roku the other day, there's a TED talk that John Wooden does that's amazing. When I'm leaving, He said, "I'd like to give you something." He reached and had a box of cards that were shaped like credit cards. He gave it to me.

On one side of the card was a poem that was a favorite of His, or points. On the other side was a picture of John Wooden and His father, and then some things that His father had taught Him. He gave it to me. I'm having this emotional time, and it's time to leave. I'm saying, "Coach, can I get a picture together, which I know you'll want a copy to put on your wall?"

He said, "Yeah. Can you give me that card back?" I thought, "Well, that didn't last long." I said, "Yeah." He took it with a Sharpie—it almost makes me cry every time because it was that meeting with Him. It's this iconic figure, and then He was like this little old 96-year-old man. He took the card, and under His picture He wrote "John Wooden." On the other side He wrote "Dad." It was an amazing moment.

The Problem with Human Achievement

That's what He was. What Paul's talking about is the equivalent of that picture in religious terms. It's the epitome of human achievement in basketball. The problem with human achievement is it produces earthly rewards, not heavenly rewards.

Along I come, even as a follower of Christ, not getting this gospel right. Along I come, even as a follower of Christ, thinking, "God, Jesus is settled. Now I've got to go live this life." He's saying no—the fact that that's settled determines how you live.

Paul is saying, "Here are these Judaizers, and they're coming along and they're adding to this." Look at the end of verse 3. This is an absolutely key phrase: "and put no confidence in the flesh." The flesh He means is the unredeemed people that we are—this body. He said we worship God in spirit, we love Him, we're drawn to Him, we find our peace in Him. The flesh is this unredeemed humanness, and I put no confidence in it.

Paul's Accounting Language

Now look at the comparison Paul uses here. He uses language that we would even put in accounting terms. He's going to talk about assets and liabilities, profit and loss. He uses a term in here, depending on your translation—He uses the term "reckons"—so it's kind of the balancing of the books.

He said in verse 4, "Although I myself might have confidence in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." He said, "Here come all these guys, and they're saying this is what you need to do, and I'm saying to you, been there, done that." He said, "I'm not attacking this as somebody who can't do this. In fact, what I've done in my life and accomplished in my life, the religion in my life, is far greater than anything they accomplished."

So He lists it: "I'm circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. As to the law, a Pharisee. As to zeal, a persecutor of the church. As to the righteousness which is in the law, blameless."

Along comes legalism. The Judaizers come. Along comes religion, and religion says work more, do more, try harder, witness longer, pray more. You never...

I had a situation one night where there was a knock on my door. I went and it was two guys with their bicycle helmets and white shirts and ties, and they wanted to talk to me about faith. This is weird—it happened because I was in the middle of study and moving from one room to the other that I came to the door with a Bible in my hand. So I thought, well, I'm prepared for the discussion if you want to talk a little bit, and I don't mean that in an arrogant way.

They started talking and they wanted to talk more about religion than about relationship. They wanted to talk more about works, and I said among other things, "How do you know that you're a child of the king and how do you know that you'll stay there?" When we were all done, the conclusion that they gave me—there was a younger guy and an older guy—the conclusion the older guy gave me is "We could never know." I said, "You can know. Hang on a second." I wrote my name and the young guy seemed to be listening. I said, "Why don't you call me?"

I know this sounds weird and this kind of thing never happens to me, but that night this kid called. He said, "You know, I'm Billy and I was at your house today and you said you could know. How could you know?" I said, "Well Billy," and all of a sudden the line was dead. I know this sounds stupid—it sounds like something you've seen. I never tell stories like this. About two minutes later the phone rang. He said, "This is Billy, I don't know what happened." I said, "Well Billy, let's get to this. You can really know. Here's how you can know," and the line went dead. This happened like three times and I never heard from him again. I don't know—sunspots or whatever.

Religion Appeals to Our Pride

Religion comes along and says you can never know. You're trending up. Be good. How good? Do what? Humanly we love that because religion appeals to our flesh. Religion appeals to your pride. Religion says be better. Better than who? How much is better? The more you do, you can do it. You can even save yourself.

Paul says, "Listen, if what you want is a resume, I'm not going to pad my resume. I'm just going to tell you the truth. I'm bred for this." I was circumcised on the eighth day—literally in the Greek it says "with respect to circumcision an eight-dayer." He didn't have anything to do with this. He didn't say to mom, "Eight day, mom, let's go, gotta go get this done." He said this is my heritage.

Paul's Inherited Credentials

I'm of the nation of Israel. These Judaizers—many of them were Gentile converts—and Paul says, "Listen, it's like it says in Amos 3:2, 'You only have I chosen among all the families of the earth.' I'm a descendant, physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob." You want to talk about tribes? I'm the tribe of Benjamin, the most prominent of tribes. By this point many of the Jewish tribes had commingled and they didn't even know that heritage, and Paul says, "No, that's where I am."

Those three things he had nothing to do with. Those were three things he was born into.

Paul's Accomplished Credentials

Now he said, "You want to talk about what I can do? I'll go to work." As a Hebrew, I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. Even though I'm in Tarsus in this Greek environment, I didn't submit myself to the Greco-Roman idea, but I maintained my family traditions and my language and my heritage.

You want to talk about law? I was a Pharisee. I kept all the law—not just the Old Testament, not just the Pentateuch, but all the laws subsequent to that. You want to talk about zeal? I didn't play at this because I loved God. I hated those things that I perceived were an attack to Him. So along comes this church and I'm going to attack that church.

That's what's happening in Paul's life in Acts chapter 9. He's on the way to Damascus to persecute the church. It's one of the great pictures, I think, of the sovereignty of God—the fact that God moves and chooses us, not we choose Him. Paul's on the way to Damascus. He's not looking for God. He's convinced he already has God. But the Holy Spirit intervenes, and the Holy Spirit doesn't change Paul's personality. He just changes his jersey, and he becomes now this zealot for the faith.

Righteousness, blameless in the law—that's me. I followed all of the prescription. Paul said these were my assets—seven of them. These were all those assets.

The Great Reversal

But verse 7: "Whatever things were once gained to me, those things I now count as loss." All these things that I strived for and gave my life to, all this human achievement, all this religion—Paul said, "I used to hold them up." I'm reading into it now, but I think this is what we could get from other passages of scripture. Paul said, "I used to hold them up and I was very proud of them."

So if somebody came to me and started talking about God, Paul would say, "You don't need to talk to me about God. I had it in my heritage. I have it in my pedigree. I have it in my nature. I don't just go to synagogue. I don't just go to church on Sunday. It permeates every thought all day long. And when I see things that are in opposition to it, I don't just condemn them—I go after them."

Paul said, "But there's a reversal that takes place. Those are all things that were great profit to me—now they're loss." More than that, "I count all these things to be loss," verse 8, "in view of"—so here's the power of expulsion of a new affection. It's not just that they're gone—something replaces them. "Loss, the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Knowing Christ Jesus as Lord

Knowing Christ Jesus as prophet, priest, and King. Knowing Him and who He is. And again, not just knowing Him, but knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, "for whom I suffered the loss of all things and I count all those things as but rubbish"—some of your translations will say dung—"and count it but rubbish in order that I might gain Christ and I might be found," chapter 3 verse 9, "in Him"—one of Paul's favorite phrases. He uses it 75 times in his letters.

I'm found in Christ, what does that mean? It means to be clothed in Him, covered in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. I'm not counting on my own behavior. I'm not counting on me earning salvation, but instead I find this righteousness that's in faith in Christ, that I might know Him and the power of His resurrection.

He's talking about what does it mean in our context—what does it mean to be a Christian? We say it over and over again: it's not what I do, it's what I believe that makes me a Christian. Now there are things that do, there's life change that comes for sure, but what makes me a Christian, the phrase Paul uses here, is that I am a Christian through faith in Christ. Faith becomes the issue—not, by the way, the amount of faith, but the object of my faith.

Faith in the Right Object

So you all today have demonstrated enormous faith already. First of all, you got up and you came here with enough faith, presuming that the room would be open and all things being equal I would be here or Frank. You drove over and demonstrated a great deal of faith that every light that was green, you went through with the assumption that the people who had red lights would stop. You're all demonstrating extraordinary faith now in that you are resting in one of these chairs. You plopped right down. I watched you aggressively flop right down in them with the faith that that chair would hold you up.

That's the thing about faith. Faith is not measured by the amount of faith. For us, the key is that we're trusting in something that's capable of doing what we're trusting it to do.

Every time I get in an airplane and I sit by one of those windows—I like window seats—I look at this plastic and I'm thinking, look at this. This looks like I could just poke right through this. We're in this tube, 35,000 feet in the air, made of material so light it has to be light or it doesn't take off. My brother was just at the Boeing factory and they're producing now a new plane that will have no rivets in it. It's just molded. It's amazing to me. There are almost no crashes of this stuff when you think percentage wise, how many flights there are every day.

Yet every once in a while, there's a crash. I don't glory in the crash, but I do glory in the illustration to say: here's the pilot, here's the passengers who had enough faith in that plane that they were willing to risk their lives on this. The problem was not the amount of faith they had. The problem was they were trusting something to perform a task for which it was not capable.

The Problem with Self-Made Religion

Now we come to Christ. Here's what Paul's saying: I had this reversal because my whole life I was trusting, in essence, myself. That's religion—anything other than biblical Christianity. So it may be, yes, Jesus died on the cross for my sin, so He's done His part, but now I need to do mine. Then it's a limited partnership. He's the general, to be sure, but I contribute something to this. Paul says, I don't contribute anything to this.

Contrary to human nature and contrary to the American experience, it seems to me. Somebody gave me a book the other day and they said, "Here's a book and it's a Christian author." I went to the back and there's the "meet the author." The first phrase is "So-and-so is a self-made..." And I said, "I don't need to read anymore. This guy's got nothing to say to me. All I'm going to get out of this are bad illustrations." If he's a self-made anything, he doesn't get what it means to come to Christ.

You're not self-made. The only thing you've made is the sinful mess you've gotten yourself into. That's what you made. You didn't make yourself, but pull yourself up by your bootstraps—there's human effort, we get it. But it doesn't contribute anything.

Human Achievement vs. What Matters Eternally

Let's shift out of business. You saw a market and you're really smart. We'll stipulate you're smart. Good going. But even the smartness you have is a gift. Even the ability to take a breath is a gift. But He's talking not about human effort now as it relates to work, human achievement and John Wooden trophies—and I love that illustration because everybody knows I love Wooden and I love UCLA basketball, that little genre of it.

But whether you're Margaret Thatcher—love Margaret Thatcher. One of the things about when somebody dies is going back. There's this great scene I'm reading about the other day where Tony Blair is talking about meeting with Muammar Gaddafi. He's telling Lady Thatcher that he hugged him and Thatcher said, "I bombed him." A different world.

So whether you're Margaret Thatcher or the most ordinary plain nondescript person on the planet, you're going to die. Whether you're the prime minister or the most lowly nondescript person that people walk by every day is irrelevant. Here's the question: What did you do with Jesus? Not what did you do, but what did you do as it relates to Christ? You need to ask yourself that.

The Challenge to Church People

For me, I'll tell you the toughest group to talk to are not lost sinful people. The toughest group to talk to are you church people, because you're kind of like these Judaizers. You're going to go, "Wait a minute, hey, are you kidding me? I go to Scottsdale Bible Church and I don't just go there, I'm contributing to the capital campaign and I serve and I'm in there on Wednesday and every time Jamie says there's a meeting, I'm there."

Well, that's all fine and dandy and good, but I hope you understand that if you're engaged in that, it's because God's changed your life, not in order for God to change your life. Big difference, isn't there? One's salvific, the other is works. Paul said this and he's made such a big deal about it.

No time for it, that I might know Him. Let me just deal with it real quickly. You know that because you've heard it. There's a big difference between knowing about President Obama and knowing him. My suspicion is many of you know much about him. You even have copies of his birth certificate somewhere, so you know him real well because you traffic in that stuff. But you don't know him, he's not on your speed dial.

I can know a lot about Jesus, but not know Him. Paul's saying there's this power about knowing Him and resurrection power, most powerful force on earth to turn death to life.

How Do You Get to Know Jesus?

How do you get to know Him? The same way you get to know each other humanly. Sandy and I have been married now 10 and a half months and there have been markers along the way. We knew each other before we got married, but how well are you going to know each other very well? You know enough to know, eh, you know, I like her, but probably because she likes me.

Something happened and I go back, something happened to us on that cruise. We had 15 days locked in this cabin with two chairs and a bed and three of my favorite things in the world you do in bed, TV and food, okay. And we walked off that ship at the end of 15 days, at least I did. I think she did too, closer to her than before. Why? I'll tell you why. Because we had 15 days we had to talk to each other. We experienced life intimately together.

That's how you get to know. When we talk about knowing here, He's talking about intimacy of relationship. How do you get that intimacy with God? Well, you listen to Him through His word. You carve out times where you're quiet. You talk to Him, that's prayer. That's how you get to know Him.

God Wants to Be Known

He's knowable and He wants to be known. It's not like an Easter egg hunt. He's not like some person who's on the run. He's not in the FBI have Him hidden out. He wants to be known by His people.

Step one is I come in repentance and faith. Step two is I pour my heart out to Him on how I want to know Him in a personal way. Now I can read this and rather than be encouraged, I can feel condemned by that.