County Fair 2022

This year, in the pavilion, we have a caricature artist. I feel sorry for him. He is a real artist, but he is bombarded by kids who have our artwork on their faces and our exploding balloons in his hands.

He does a really good job.

It takes skill to make a likeness of someone that is distorted enough to be comical, but accurate enough to be recognize-able.

Maggie and I had a caricature artist at our wedding. He was a hit. My hope was to get our likeness done here, seven years later, but it hasn’t happened yet. OR, I am so glad we did, and we look so much older.

Did you know that we get the word, caricature, from France? I won’t attempt to pronounce the French word, but it meant “to exaggerate”.

A caricature artist takes a person and exaggerates certain characteristics to create a comic effect. They are a lot of fun.

People love watching a caricature artist at work. Comments that are made are normally about how talented the guy is, which is true.

However, we are all caricature artists. I am not talking about how we view ourselves physically, though that is probably true. I am talking about how we view each other emotionally and spiritually, our characters too often become caricatures.

Pray

How we view others

Let’s think about it. How do we often view those around us?

We are human. We are constantly assessing those around us based upon what we see, compared to ourselves. That assessment is never completely true. It is always a caricature.

Better than they are

Sometimes, we look at someone and we see them better than who they are.

Turn to someone near you and say “Wow! You are awesome!”

I think about the prophet Samuel when God told him to anoint the next king of Israel. Samuel follows God’s directions and finds himself at Bethlehem talking with Jesse and his sons. Jesse had eight sons, but only brought seven.

Samuel looked at each of those seven and thought that they would be great kings. But, this prophet of God was wrong.

God said

1 Samuel 16:7 NIV

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

We may think that we are looking at someone’s heart, but we are not. We are only looking at what we can see, and that perspective is very flawed.

Samuel had Jesse bring the youngest, David, and God said that this was the man who would be king.

Sometimes, we look at each other, and for some reason, we see each other through rose-colored glasses.

Perhaps we are jealous of certain character qualities, or perhaps someone is a mentor, someone we look up to. Maybe the person in view is a pastor. Maybe someone is being a hypocrite and hiding their sin.

Whatever the case, we see them better than they really are.

Unfortunately, when we see someone better than they really are, we are bound to be disappointed and hurt when we are smacked in the face with their sin.

Whether we see it or not, they are sinners. Paul is very clear about this.

Romans 3:23 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Sooner or later, a person’s humanity will shine, glaringly, for all to see.

That’s one reason why I try very hard to acknowledge my faults, even from the pulpit, so that people will not see me better than themselves.

I am sinner, just like everyone else. I should not be put on a pedestal or viewed through rose-colored glasses.

We see caricatures of each other. Sometimes, we see the good exaggerated.

Worse than they are

Sometimes we look at someone else and we see them worse than they are.

Turn to someone near you, wrinkle your noise and say “ugh”.

Yes, everyone is a sinner, but that doesn’t mean they have to be defined by that sin, exaggerated to be this distorted, grotesque picture.

I think about Jesus. He developed quite the reputation for himself. He spent time in the home of what the religious elite, the Pharisees, called sinners.

These were tax collectors, Jews who had sold themselves to the service of the Romans for money and for a privileged existence. These were prostitutes. These were Jews who were not the most faithful in following the teachings of the Pharisees.

Good Jews did not hang out with people like Jesus hung out with. People began to talk.

He was a great teacher. With his words, he led people to God. But, with his actions, he spent time with people who seemed to be running from God.

The Pharisees were confused. That confusion boiled over when “a woman who lived a sinful life” came and anointed Jesus’ feet with oil, while weeping.

Luke 7:39–40 NIV

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said.

Jesus tells him a parable about someone who owed a lot of money and was forgiven that debt.

Luke continues

Luke 7:44–50 NIV

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Sometimes we see people as sinners, because of their past actions, but we forget that they can be loved by Jesus Christ and they can be changed by that love.

When someone comes to Jesus in faith, as Jesus said, they are saved. Their sins are forgiven and their past does not define them anymore.

We have a hard time with that, because many times we have grown up with someone. We have been hurt by someone else. So, we see the caricature. We see the sin, exaggerated before our eyes, instead of seeing the whole picture.

Turn to someone near you and say “I’m sorry.”

Caricatures. It happens all the time when we look at others.

When we look at ourselves

It happens all the time when we look at ourselves.

Better than we are

It is the normal human condition to see ourselves better than we are.

Say “Aren’t I great?” Now say it with feeling.

Which is why Jesus said:

Matthew 7:1–5 NIV

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

We normally see all the sin around us and forget that we are just as depraved as the person next to us.

We forget that we lie, cheat, and steal. We forget the laws in our area are because of us, instead of the person that lives across the street. We forget that speed limits are laws and should be followed.

We are sinners, desperately in need of Jesus Christ.

We are the ones that Paul is talking about when he says:

Romans 3:23 NIV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Let’s step away from looking at ourselves from our perspective, and see God’s perspective.

The Bible speaks of God creating the world a long time ago. The culmination of his creation was humanity. He looked at everything that he created and said that it was very good.

Humanity was special in that we were made in his image. We were reflections of his character and his creativity. We were designed to have an close friendship with him.

Unfortunately, while God provided everything humanity needed, we chose to turn away from him and go our own way. While God is the way of life and blessing, we chose to go the way of death and destruction.

We piled sin upon sin. That sin separates us from God. That sin dooms us to an eternity apart from him.

Not to add more bad news, but the good things that we think we do, do not remove the sin from our lives.

We could go to church every day. We could get baptized. We could take communion, go through confirmation, participate in confession. We could regurgitate prayers. We could give money. We could volunteer in our community. We could help every elderly lady across the street, but we would still be sinners. And the sin that we have done, no matter the good in our lives, separates us from God.

This is God’s perspective: He created us to fellowship with him, but we separated ourselves from him. However, he still loves us. He still wanted a relationship with us, in spite of our sin.

He provided a way that we could come close again. He sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross, paying the penalty for our sin.

John wrote:

John 3:16 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John records earlier.

John 1:12 NIV

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

It is for us to confess that we are sinners, that we cannot do anything to save ourselves. We turn to Jesus and acknowledge that he did everything for us.

Romans 10:9 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

When we do this, we are saved. Our sins are forgiven. We can have the friendship with God that we were created for, and all the blessings that come from that relationship are ours.

If we refuse to acknowledge that we are sinners, if we are merely seeing a caricature of ourselves, Jesus’ sacrifice is not applied to our account.

Caricatures. Normally, we see ourselves better than we actually are.

Worse than we are

Sometimes, we look at ourselves and see a different caricature. We see ourselves worse than we are.

Say “I am horrible”

Sometimes we look at our lives and all the bad springs up.

Instead of the Pharisee standing in the temple, we are the sinner.

Luke 18:9–13 NIV

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

The tax collector knew his sin, and he couldn’t even look up to heaven.

There are some people who are crushed beneath the weight of their sin. In fact sometimes, when they hear about the Gospel, they say: I am too bad for that. God cannot love me. I’ve done too many bad things.

Jesus says to those who think that:

Matthew 9:12–13 NIV

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Our sin does not keep us from accepting Jesus’ amazing sacrifice. No one deserves what he did, but he offers it to everyone.

When we turn from our sins and trust Jesus for our salvation, he has paid the penalty for all the sins of the past. They do not define us anymore.

We don’t have to live under the burdens anymore. No matter what our past looks like. If your past is keeping you from turning to Jesus, know that he is giving you the key to leaving your past behind.

If you have made that decision, and the past still weighs you down. Know that God doesn’t see your sin. He sees us for who we are, as Paul records in Ephesians 1.

This is what he sees about each one of us who have placed our faith in him:

I am created by God. He designed me, so I am not a mistake.

His Son died for me, just so I could be forgiven.

He picked me to be His own, so I’m chosen.

He redeemed me, so I am wanted.

He showed me grace, just so I could be saved.

He has a future for me, because he loves me.

I am a child of God.

And this is you, if you have believed in Jesus Christ and his death on the cross for your sins.

By forgetting how God sees us and what Jesus did for us, instead focusing on our sin from the past, we are seeing a caricature of ourselves, almost a lie, because it denies what God can do in us.

Caricatures.

I love a good caricature artist. Caricatures on paper are great.

However, when we naturally create caricatures of each other and ourselves, we create a mess.

Let us instead remember how God sees us. Let us fall on our faces in awe of the God who sees us clearly for who we really are and loves us beyond what we can ever imagine. To Him be glory now and forever more.