Funeral Sermon For Unsaved Man

The Judge Of All The Earth Does Right

We have gathered here today because a life has ended, and that fact is heavy. Whatever brought each of you through that door this morning, whether it was love, loyalty, duty, or grief you cannot yet name, you are here because a real human being lived, and now that person is gone. That absence is not small. It is not something a few well-chosen words can fix. So before we say anything else, we simply acknowledge what is true: this hurts. Grief is not a weakness. It is the price of love, and love is never wasted.

I want to speak honestly with you today, because I believe you deserve honesty more than you deserve comfort that will not hold. I want to open the Scriptures together, because I believe the Bible speaks truthfully into the hardest moments of human life. And I want to leave you, before you walk back out into the world, with something real to hold onto.

Let us 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 would not 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.'"

The God Who Weeps

I want to begin where John 11 begins: with tears. Jesus stood at the grave of his friend Lazarus, surrounded by mourning people, and he wept. The Son of God, who knew what he was about to do, who knew that Lazarus would walk out of that tomb within minutes, still wept. He did not stand at a distance and offer explanations. He did not hand out theological answers and walk away. He entered the grief. He let it touch him. The shortest verse in the English Bible, "Jesus wept," may be among the most important. It tells us that the God we are speaking about today is not a God who is unmoved by human sorrow. He is not watching from a cold distance. He sees this room. He sees every face. And the grief you carry today is not invisible to him.

That matters before we say anything else.

The God Who Is Just

Now I want to speak carefully, because careful speech is a form of respect. When someone we love dies, and we are not certain of the state of their soul, the honest thing is to say so. I will not pretend to know what I do not know. I will not manufacture a conversion story or offer you a false assurance that has no foundation. That kind of comfort feels kind in the moment, but it is not kind. It leaves people with a faith built on something that was never real.

What I can tell you is what Abraham declared in Genesis 18. Standing before God, wrestling with a question of eternal justice, Abraham asked: "Won't the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" That was not a challenge. It was a confession. Abraham was declaring something he knew to be true about the character of God. The Judge of all the earth is not careless. He is not arbitrary. He is not cruel. He does not make mistakes. Every human life, every private moment, every hidden prayer, every quiet turning of the heart that no one else ever witnessed, none of it is hidden from him. He knows what we are made of. He knows the full story. We do not.

So we entrust the person we remember today into the hands of a God who is both perfectly just and overwhelmingly compassionate. We do not pronounce judgment. That is not our office. We leave that where it belongs, with the only One qualified to hold it.

The God Who Is Merciful

But we do not leave it there in silence. Because the Psalm we read is not a Psalm of cold justice. It is a Psalm of staggering mercy. Listen again to what the Psalmist says about God: he is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

This is the God who is also the Judge. He is not one or the other. He is both, fully and without contradiction. And the way he holds both justice and mercy together is not a mystery he left unanswered. He answered it at the cross. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took the full weight of human sin upon himself, died in the place of sinners, and rose from the dead on the third day. That is the gospel. That is the only ground on which any human being, including every person in this room, can stand before a holy God and not be consumed. Not our goodness. Not our church attendance. Not our grief today. Only the grace of God received through faith in Jesus Christ.

The Invitation To The Living

I want to speak now to the living, because that is who I can speak to. You are here. You are breathing. And whatever you came in believing or doubting or not believing at all, the door is still open for you.

Death has a way of cutting through everything that is not essential. It strips away the noise and leaves us standing in front of the one question that actually matters: where do I stand with God? If you have never settled that question, I am asking you to consider it today. Not out of fear, not because grief is being used as a lever to move you, but because the gospel is true every day, and it is true today, and you do not have to leave this room without it.

If you want to know more, speak to a pastor. Open a Bible. Ask someone who follows Jesus to walk with you. The God who wept at a grave is the God who is reaching toward you right now.

A Final Word

We close where we began: with honesty and with hope. A life has ended. We grieve that. We do not pretend it does not hurt. We do not have all the answers. But we know the One who does. We know that the Judge of all the earth will do what is right. We know that Jesus wept. We know that the cross is real and the resurrection is real and the mercy of God is wider than we can measure.

That is enough to stand on. And by the grace of God, it is enough to carry us home.

Sources Consulted

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

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

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.

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