Funeral Sermon For A Non Believer

The Judge Of All The Earth Does Right

We gather today in grief. There is no other honest way to begin. Someone who was part of your life is gone, and the absence is real. The chair is empty. The phone does not ring. The voice you knew is silent. Whatever else may be said this afternoon, that loss deserves to be named and honored before anything else is spoken.

I want to be honest with you today, because I believe you deserve honesty more than you deserve comfortable words that ring hollow the moment you walk back out into the sunlight. I am not going to pretend to know things I do not know. I am not going to manufacture a tidy ending to a story whose final chapter belongs to God alone. What I am going to do is open the Scriptures with you, because I believe the Bible speaks truthfully into exactly this kind of moment, including the hard and uncertain ones.

Please hear three passages of Scripture.

Psalm 103, verses 8 through 14, in the Christian Standard Bible: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love. He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust."

Genesis 18, verse 25: "You could not possibly do such a thing: to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. You could not possibly do that! Won't the Judge of all the earth do what is just?"

And John 11, verses 32 through 36: "When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, 'Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.' When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 'Where have you put him?' he asked. 'Lord,' they told him, 'come and see.' Jesus wept. So the Jews said, 'See how he loved him.'"

This is the Word of God.

Part One: Jesus Wept

I want to begin at the end of that third passage, because it may be the most important two words in this sermon. Jesus wept.

When Jesus arrived at the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he did not immediately launch into a theological lecture. He did not tell the grieving sisters that they were wrong to cry. He did not rush past the pain toward the miracle. He stopped. He looked at the people he loved, and he wept with them.

That is not a small detail. This is the Son of God, the one who would raise Lazarus from the dead within the hour, standing at a graveside and weeping. The people watching said, "See how he loved him." They recognized grief as the language of love. And so it is. If you are crying today, you are not weak. You are not failing. You are loving someone who is gone, and Jesus understands that from the inside.

Whatever else you carry out of this room today, carry this: the God of the Bible is not distant from your grief. He is not impatient with your tears. He wept at a tomb, and he sees you weeping at this one.

Part Two: The Judge Of All The Earth

Now I want to speak carefully and honestly about something that weighs on many hearts at a funeral like this one.

When someone we love dies and we are not certain about the state of their faith, the grief carries an extra weight. Questions rise up that no preacher can answer with certainty. And I will not pretend otherwise. What I can do is point you to the character of the God who holds every answer.

Abraham, in Genesis 18, is interceding for a city. He is wrestling with the justice of God, and he asks a question that has echoed through centuries of human grief: "Won't the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" It is not a defiant question. It is a trusting one. Abraham is not accusing God. He is appealing to God's own character, and in doing so, he is resting his uncertainty in the hands of the one who knows everything.

That is what I am asking you to do today.

We do not know everything about any human heart. We do not know the full story of every quiet moment, every private thought, every last breath. But God does. The Judge of all the earth knows every person completely, and he does what is just. He does not make mistakes. He does not overlook what matters. He does not condemn the innocent, and he does not ignore what is real.

You can entrust the person you love to that God. Not because you have resolved every question, but because the God who judges is also the God who wept at a tomb. He is not cold. He is not arbitrary. He is just, and he is merciful, and he knows far more than we do.

Part Three: He Knows What We Are Made Of

Psalm 103 gives us the deepest comfort available to human beings standing at the edge of what they cannot understand. The psalmist says that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love. And then he says something that stops me every time I read it: "He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust."

God is not surprised by human frailty. He is not shocked by weakness, by wandering, by the complicated and imperfect lives that every one of us lives. He made us from dust, and he has never forgotten that. His compassion is not a reward for people who have everything figured out. It is the posture of a Father toward children he knows completely.

That does not mean that faith is unimportant. The psalm itself speaks of faithful love toward those who fear him. The New Testament is clear that salvation comes through faith in Jesus Christ, through repentance and trust in the one who died for sinners and rose from the dead. That is not a small thing. It is the whole thing. But the application of that truth to any individual soul belongs to God, not to me, and not to you.

What belongs to us is this: we can grieve honestly, we can trust the Judge of all the earth to do what is right, and we can receive the comfort that God offers to the living.

A Word To Everyone Here

If you are here today and you are not sure where you stand with God, I want to speak directly and gently to you. Not to use this grief as pressure, but because this moment has a way of making the important things feel urgent, and they are.

Jesus Christ came into this world, lived a sinless life, died on a cross to bear the penalty for human sin, and rose from the dead on the third day. He offers forgiveness and life to everyone who turns from sin and trusts in him. That offer is real. It is open. It does not require you to have everything sorted out before you come. It requires only that you come.

If today has stirred something in you, do not let it pass. Speak to a pastor. Open a Bible. Ask your questions honestly. The God who wept at a tomb is not afraid of your grief or your doubt.

Conclusion

We leave this place carrying our grief. That is right and human and true. But we do not leave without hope. We leave knowing that Jesus wept, that the Judge of all the earth does right, and that the God who made us from dust has not forgotten what we are.

To the one we remember today, we say goodbye with love. To the God who knows all things, we entrust what we cannot carry. And to every living soul in this room, we say: the door is open, the Savior is real, and today is not too late.

Sources Consulted

Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, Volume 3, Kregel Academic, 2016.

Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 18 through 50, New International Commentary on the Old Testament, Eerdmans, 1995.

D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary, Eerdmans, 1991.

Derek Kidner, Psalms 73 through 150, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, InterVarsity Press, 1975.

Andreas J. Kostenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Baker Academic, 2004.