Tony Parrish Funeral

I would like to welcome everyone here this morning and thank you for being here to give your condolences, and show your love to the family.

Pray

Obituary

David A. or as everyone knew him, Tony Parrish, 67 of Homosassa, passed away on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2022, under the loving care of family at home. Tony was born Jan. 23, 1955, in Inverness, and was a life-long Citrus County resident.

He was a retired heavy equipment operator and a member of Red Level Baptist Church. Tony loved his family and many friends. Some of the best times of his life were spent with family and friends hunting in the woods and fishing on the water.

Left to cherish his memory are his daughter Jessica and her husband Ryan Corman; his twin grandchildren, whom he adored, Rylee and Ronald Corman; his beloved sister Wanda Kaye Peters and her husband Tim; and nephew Jason Parrish, niece Julie Peters; his nephews Jacob Peters and his wife Bobbie Jo and their children Eli, Addy and Beau, and David Peters and his wife Kaitlyn and their daughter Lilliana and many, many cousins.

He was preceded in death by his father Jacob Parrish, his mother Juanita Priest Parrish, his older brother Jimmy Parrish, his nephew Josh Parrish his sister-in-law Jan Parrish, and his nephew Timmy Peters.

Stories from loved ones

Jacob Peters

Jessica Corman

Dixie Holands

Special Music

Message

Let me share some of my memories of Tony. A memory I have of Tony that will probably be with me forever, is from back in 2003 I was working at office max when Tony was involved in the serious accident, as we heard it in the building we rushed out to help, as I went past Tony at first, to assist and walking back by looking down seeing him lying in a poodle of blood I thought he was dead.

I was reminded of this accident as I was studying Scripture for this service, when God lead me to Ephesians 2:1-3

Ephesians 2:1–3 NASB95

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

As I read verse 1 there, God brought back to my mind that scene of Tony laying in the middle of the road in that poodle of blood. We are all at one time in our life dead in our trespasses and sins, when Tony started coming back to church here about 2 years ago or so, I talked to him off and on and would tell him man God gave you a second chance at life that day in the middle of 19 and you got a heck of a testimony.

He would tell me, he always remembered the day that God brought him out of the comma there in the hospital, and he knew it was God. Ephesians 2:4

Ephesians 2:4 NASB95

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

See because of God’s rich and great mercy for us, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God is what Romans 3:23 tells us, and the consequences, or the penalty, the punishment of those sins are eternal separation from God in Hell’s damnation.

But God who is rich in mercy, He has loved us before we even knew anything about him, decided to provided away for us to miss the consequences, to be forgiven of those sins, those short comings.

Back in July Tony called me and said hey you at your office, I said I sure am, he said, I want to stop by and talk.

He came by, and we talked for a while, and then he said to me, Chris it is time, and I was like okay, and was thinking time for what.

He said, it is time to do it for the right reason, he said, when I was a teenager, I went forward and said the prayer, and got baptized because that is what my mom wanted me to do and that is what the other teenagers were doing.

He said this time, I need to do it for me and God, because I know I have to get it right and be right with Him. I said, yes you are right. We cannot do it for someone else, we have to do it because God is leading us to do it and that we are accepting what He is calling us to do.

So we talked about salvation, what we are to do, why we do it, and he grew up in church, he knew what he needed to do, but he had just been doing it to satisfy others, which a lot of us do.

But he was ready to do it for the right reason, to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and to secure his place in heaven, that he would be with Jesus when he left this life and this earth.

Ephesians 2:5–8 NASB95

5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

That day Tony decided to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior of his life. He was made alive in Christ, that day he was more alive than he had ever been in his life. Yes, he was going through a lot of health problems at that point already, but he had been saved by grace for eternity. He had been raised up and seat with Jesus, see we are saved by grace through faith.

With this new faith, this new salvation that Tony recieved that day, there was some great promised that he also recieved.

Some of those great promised that Tony had to look forward to and has now recieved, is first

John 14:1–3 NASB95

1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

Here Jesus tells the disciples, and all his followers that He was going to prepare places for them, and if you are a follower of his then a place for you also, and that he would personally receive you to take you to that place in heaven.

When Tony accept Jesus as Lord and Savior that day, Jesus was preparing a place for Tony, to have for him in heaven.

We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:8

2 Corinthians 5:8 NASB95

8 we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.

Here we are promised that when we are absent from the body, that we are at home with the Lord, that is when Tony took his last breath on Saturday the 17, he was immediately in the presence of the Lord at home in the place that Jesus was preparing for him there in heaven.

Maybe you are here this morning and say, well I am not sure how to have a place in heaven like Tony, to have those promises that Tony did.

Well to continue on in John 14, doubting Thomas tells Jesus we do not know the way how can we follow you.

John 14:4–6 CSB

4 You know the way to where I am going.” 5 “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus responds to Thomas by saying - I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, that is through Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Therefore, you can have a place prepared for you, and you can have the promises that Tony had by accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, that is having a personal relationship with Jesus.

Let me tell you that it would be Tony’s last wishes to have everyone here today have a personal relationship with Jesus in order that he could see you again when it is your time to leave this earth.

Because of that, his brother-in-law is going to come and just play a verse or 2 and we are going to offer an invitation.

Pray