Tommy Lynn McGarry Memorial Service

Psalm 118:24 and Welcome to Sunnyside

Is the day that the Lord has made. So good morning and welcome to Sunnyside. We wanna thank you for your attendance this morning and showing support and encouragement and love to the family. It is deeply appreciated.

Opening Prayer for Tommy McGarry

And we wanna begin this morning with a prayer. So if you would bow and pray with me. Thank you, Lord, for our brother in Christ. Tommy's life and his testimony bore witness to a heart of stone made into a heart of flesh.

Thank you for Tommy's love of you, of his family, of his friends, and the lost. His compassion towards others and his passion for your word brought you praise and honor. And we desire to remember how you redeemed Tommy's soul for eternity.

May all who say and do this morning bring glory to your name and all God's people said, amen.

Bring me this. I keep trying to clean my glasses, but I've decided it's not my glasses. It's my eyes. They keep filling up with water and I can't see through the lenses. Tommy Lynn McGarry of Oklahoma City.

He was born in Wellington, Texas on March the 3rd, 1951 to Thomas Everett McGarry and Una Maxine Orton on Thursday, July the 15th, 2021. Tommy left this world to join his Lord and Savior in his father's house at the age of 70 years young.

Tommy was a hard worker who dedicated his life to his family, his friends, and his church. He worked as an electrician for 27 years. During that time, he went back for further education and he finished his career as an electrical draftsman.

He and his wife, Marilyn Diane McGarry Glass married on October the 24th, 1975 at the Will Rogers Rose Garden of Oklahoma City. They would spend the next 46 years together building their lives and raising the family.

Tommy was an avid OU fan and a proud member. Let me restate that. He was a really proud member of the 1969 NEO National Championship football team. A longtime member of the Ronnie McGee deer camp, he loved hunting, fishing, and anything outdoors.

Both he and Diane were members of the Sunnyside Baptist Church of Oklahoma City. While Tommy loved to cook, smoke, and grill for friends and family, he always made time to go eat with his Capitol Hill Grill on the Hill lunch buddies.

I'd like to meet some of them folks. His favorite pastime, though, was playing and spending time with family and his grandchildren. Tommy was preceded in death by his father, Thomas McGarry, and friend, George Zellmer.

He is survived by his son, Josh McGarry, and his wife, Amanda Rook. Daughter, Angela Cummings. Daughter, Rebecca Durham. And her husband, Michael Durham. Grandkids, Hayden Cummings, Lucas Cummings, Benjamin Durham, Sophia Durham, Abigail Durham, Emmet Durham, Tobias Durham, and Clementine McGarry.

Mother, Maxine McGarry. Sister, Pat Ellis and her husband, Mark. Sister, Gwen Dunn, and her husband, Ricky. Brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Ronnie and Sherry Ward. Numerous nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and untold numbers of friends.

Tommy's Love for Scripture and the Testimony of "Better Than I Deserve"

Tommy was a big hugger. He liked hugging. And Tommy liked praying. And Tommy loved his time in the scripture. And when a passage of scripture would fit a particular thing that was going on in his personal life, whether it be family or work or church, whatever, he would always get a word from God out of God's word for that particular thing.

He would call me from time to time, and he'd say, Brother Donnie, I've got to share something with you. And he'd quote a passage of scripture, and then he would testify to the meaning of that scripture in his life at that time.

What an encourager, what a man of God that we honor here today in this memorial service. And I would like to read for you this morning from the book of Romans in chapter eight, a passage of scripture that Tommy loved.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestinated, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all. How shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Shall God that justifieth?

Who is he that condemneth? Shall Christ that died, yea rather, that he is risen again? Who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us? What shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Would you join me in singing a few hymns of praise and thanksgiving and remembrance of our Lord? Tommy liked to sing as well, so let's lift our voices. Father, I adore you. Hymns that he knew so well.

What a joy to know him, and sitting with the family in church on the same pew, and singing and hearing his voice. Anyone who, McGarry, a couple of things upon initial greeting. A massive hug, a big, strong, enveloping hug that seemed to wash away all the troubles of the week.

After that, you pull back a little bit, and you'd ask him how he was. And with a little twinkle in his eye, he'd say, better than I deserve. Better than I deserve. That wasn't some trite talk. That was his testimony.

That was his testimony. If there was ever an epitaph to be engraved over the life of Tommy McGarry, it is that, better than I deserve. Many of you knew Tommy for a handful of years. Many of you knew Tommy for a handful of decades.

Either case, you are in position to weigh that claim. Better than I deserve. There are many stories that could come to mind that would leave us with the question of, really, did he really deserve? Some of the stories are ensconced in the hushed tones of family, inner family discussion.

No, some of the really, really tough stories. Some of the stories are well-known and obvious, but how could he say, with all that, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. Didn't a bright young husband deserve better?

Than to lose his father so early? Didn't a hardworking young father deserve better than to get injured on the job and be out of work for years? And didn't a doting grandfather, with many dandy boys and darling girls, didn't he deserve better than a cascade of health failures in his retirement years?

How can it be that he was better off? How can it be that he was far more so than what he actually deserved? At the graveside a week ago, we shared honoring words with one another about Tommy. Things were said like these.

He was virtuous. He was giving, hospitable, joyful, loyal, righteous, loving, friendly, faithful, and kind. Heard that a lot, kind. Surely the question perhaps hidden deep down, perhaps convulsing into some tears, the question is really, shouldn't he have deserved more or better?

I wanna share with you what dad would have told you if this is a riddle for you. What do you mean you're better than you deserve? He would readily confess to you. I'm a sinner saved by grace. I'm a sinner saved by grace.

That doesn't mean much to some because it can be a little confusing. We don't talk about sin very much anymore. God doesn't keep it a mystery. He just says it right plain. Sin is lawlessness. He defines it for us.

It doesn't have to be a mystery. It means breaking God's law. You see, God is the one who determines right and wrong, holy and unholy, and he's made us. He's our maker. He made us in his image. Some people think that we're an accidental monkey mutation.

Well, they are gonna have their superstitions and that's what they're going to do. But I'm here to tell you, on the authority of the word of God, we are made in the image of God. And what that means is that he has made us to so mediate his goodness that we manifest his glory.

He's made us for relationship with him and with one another and responsible for this entire creation that he's made. And he's made us in his image, which means that we wear a certain uniform, whether we like it or not.

And sin is when we are not living according to that uniform. We're not living according to the glory of God, but we're falling short of the glory of God. And that's called sin, living in opposition to God.

Romans 6 .23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus our Lord. Adam and Eve knew the punishment for sin, sin, death, relational death, spiritual death, eventually physical death.

And yet, and yet God did not leave them hopeless. He promised them that one would come. He promised them the savior. He promised them Christ. Dad would say better than I deserve. What he means was I deserve the just punishment from God for my sins.

He said, well, he was a good man. Well, there's two things about that. One, he'd say, not really, but only because of Christ. The apostle Paul said it this way. I am what I am by the grace of God. And that's all that I am.

I'm not taking credit for any of this. He also said in Galatians 2 .20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And how was Tommy doing when we knew him well and enjoyed his hugs and rejoiced at his hospitality? He was better than he deserved.

And even now, absent from the body, present with the Lord, he is better than he deserves. And in the coming glorious days, when Jesus returns and raises the dead, and Tommy stands glorified in a new and perfect body, even then he will be better than he deserves.

That is the testimony. That is the testimony. And that is the hope of the gospel. What we deserve, what we deserve is laid out very clearly. We deserve the judgment of God. As sinners, those who fall short of God's glory, not our standards, God's standards.

Our standards keep changing by the minute. God doesn't change. What we deserve is death, spiritual death, relational death, physical death, even eternal death. That we have life at all, that we have breath at all, that we have family, that we have friends, that we have food and enjoyment, that we enjoy the bright sun.

These are undeserved gifts of the holy God, but there's even more. Anybody would ever know God as heavenly father through the good news of Jesus Christ, his son, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that we would have life eternal, life spiritual.

That is grace upon grace upon grace. If you're wondering how I'm doing, well, better than I deserve. It's not trite, it's a testimony. I don't, family, I don't want you to grieve as those who have no hope.

Comfort in Christ, Eternal Glory, and the Hope of the Gospel

So I encourage you to turn to Christ, to know the comfort of God's promises. As Brother Don read for us earlier, God works all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose.

And nothing, not even disappointment, broken dreams, interrupted plans, grief, bereavement, not even death can separate us from the love of God, which is through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And I am canceling myself.

I need comfort in these things as I speak to you. Second Corinthians 4, 16 through 18. Therefore, we do not lose heart. I want you to lose heart. Do not, we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

While we do not look at the things which are seen, I want you to hear that. While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

I want you to know that Tommy never lost heart. He never lost heart. Even as his outward man decayed and perished, his inner man was being renewed by the Holy Spirit day by day. Day by day is the blessings of Christ.

The grace of God enlivened his soul. And the sorrow and the suffering and the sickness that Tommy sometimes knew in his life in the ultimate scheme of things was all light affliction. It was momentary.

And it was nothing compared to the weight of abundant and everlasting glory. When you pull back from his embrace and you asked him how he was, there would be a twinkle in his eye. What was he looking at?

What was he looking at? Nothing anyone could see. With his eyes on the eternal truth of the gospel, with his eyes of faith fixed upon Christ, conviction and joy warmed his simple reply. Better than I deserve.

Closing Prayer, Final Hymn, and Benediction

Let me pray for us. Father, I thank you for those who have come today. Work this testimony of your servant, Tommy McGarry, into our lives. This reminder, this simple reminder of your grace. May we also so rejoice.

May we also be filled with gratitude. Gratitude to you for all the blessings that you pour out into our lives. And may we with warm conviction and joy in our lives, even if we don't say it, that you would bring it to our mind when anyone asks how you're doing.

That indeed, because of you, because of Jesus, we are better than we deserve. We thank you again for your servant, Tommy McGarry, who has finished the race, who has fought the good fight, and is now among the cloud of witnesses at rest.

Praise be to you. Amen. Was a secret in sin

We close today. I'd like to invite you to sing again another great hymn. It is Well With My Soul.

Is like Thank you so much for coming.

There is a reception back in the fellowship hall for all of us to spend some time together around the memories and the blessings of Tommy. You know how he liked the fellowship. And so you are invited to spend time with the family and with one another back in the fellowship hall after the benediction.

And now may God bless you and keep you. May he cause his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he lift up his countenance upon you and grant you peace. We are dismissed.