Funeral Sermon For Non Religious Person

The Judge Of All The Earth Does Right

We gather today in the presence of grief. That is an honest thing to say, and honesty is what this moment deserves. You have loved someone. You have lost someone. The seat that used to be filled is empty now, and no arrangement of flowers and no carefully chosen words can make that feel small. Grief is the price of love, and if you are hurting today, that hurt is not a sign that something has gone wrong in you. It is a sign that you loved well.

I want to speak to you today not with easy answers but with something I believe is more durable than easy answers. I want to speak to you from Scripture, because I have found that in moments like this one, the Word of God does not flinch from hard realities, and it does not offer comfort that dissolves the moment you press on it. It offers truth. And truth, even when it is difficult, is the only foundation that holds.

Our texts today come from Psalm 103, Genesis 18, and the Gospel of John.

What The Psalms Teach Us About God's Character

Psalm 103, verses 8 through 14, in the Christian Standard Bible, reads this way:

"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."

Read that slowly and let it settle. The psalmist is not describing a God who is distant or indifferent. He is describing a God who is compassionate and gracious. A God who is slow to anger. A God who, in the psalmist's stunning phrase, knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust.

That word "dust" is not an insult. It is an acknowledgment of our fragility, and the remarkable thing is that God's response to our fragility is not contempt. It is compassion. He looks at the brevity and the brokenness of human life and he draws near rather than pulling away. That is the character of the God we are speaking about today.

Now, this psalm speaks specifically of God's compassion toward those who fear him. That is a phrase we must not skip past. The fear of the Lord in Scripture is not terror. It is reverence, trust, and a life oriented toward God. The psalm is honest that this compassion flows in a particular direction. And that honesty matters, because I will not stand here and pretend that every question this day raises has a tidy answer.

The Question We Cannot Answer And The God Who Can

There are moments in pastoral ministry when the most faithful thing a preacher can do is acknowledge what he does not know. I did not walk through life with the person we remember today. I cannot tell you with certainty what was in that person's heart in the final hours, the final days, or across the whole span of a life. None of us fully can. And I will not pretend otherwise.

But I can tell you what Abraham said to God in Genesis 18, verse 25. Abraham was standing before God, wrestling with a question of justice and judgment, and he asked: "Won't the Judge of all the earth do what is right?"

That question is not a challenge to God. It is a confession of faith. Abraham was saying that whatever God decides, God decides rightly. The Judge of all the earth is not careless. He is not arbitrary. He is not cruel. He sees every life with perfect clarity, including everything we cannot see, including every private moment of reaching, every whispered prayer no one else heard, every quiet turning of the heart. He knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust.

I do not know the full story of the person we grieve today, and neither do you. But I know the character of the One who does know that story completely. And I can say with Abraham, the Judge of all the earth will do what is right. We can entrust this person to that God. Not because we have resolved every question, but because the God who holds the answer is good.

Jesus Wept

Before I speak of hope, I want to linger for a moment in the Gospel of John, chapter 11, verses 32 through 36. Jesus has come to the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Mary falls at his feet weeping. The people around her are weeping. And the text says that when Jesus saw her weeping and saw the others weeping with her, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. He asked where they had laid Lazarus. They said, "Lord, come and see." And then, in the shortest verse in the English Bible: "Jesus wept."

I want you to hear that. Jesus, who is the Son of God, who knew that in a matter of moments he would call Lazarus out of that tomb, still wept. He did not stand apart from the grief of that crowd and say, "Why are you crying? Don't you know how this ends?" He entered their grief. He was moved by it. He wept.

That tells us something essential. Grief is not a failure of faith. Sorrow is not a sign that you do not believe. Jesus himself stood at a graveside and wept. If you are weeping today, you are in good company. You are standing where Jesus stood. And the same Jesus who wept at that tomb is present in this room today, and he is not unmoved by what you are carrying.

The Hope That Does Not Require Us To Pretend

Here is the hope I want to leave with you, and it is a hope that does not require us to pretend.

Jesus did not just weep at Lazarus's tomb. He called Lazarus out of it. He said, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live." That claim is either the most important thing ever spoken or it is nothing at all. I believe it is the most important thing ever spoken.

Death is real. Grief is real. The questions we carry out of this room today are real. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ is also real, and it is the only answer to death that has ever actually confronted death and defeated it. The tomb was empty on the third day. That changes everything.

For those of you who already know this Jesus, let this day deepen your trust in him. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He holds every life, including the life we grieve today, in hands that were pierced for us.

For those of you who are not sure what you believe, I want to speak to you gently and directly. You do not have to have everything figured out to come to Jesus. He met people in the middle of their confusion and their grief and their doubt. He meets people there still. If today has stirred something in you, a longing, a question, a quiet sense that there must be more, do not let that go unanswered. Talk to someone. Open a Bible. Ask God, if he is there, to make himself known to you. He is not far from any one of us.

We came here today carrying grief. We leave carrying the same grief, but we do not leave without hope. The Judge of all the earth does right. The God who made us from dust draws near to us in our dust. And the one who wept at a tomb is the same one who emptied one.

May that be enough to carry you through this day, and through every hard day that follows.

Sources Consulted

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

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

Gordon J. Wenham. Genesis 16 to 50. Word Biblical Commentary. Word Books, 1994.

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

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