The death of legendary baseball broadcaster Bob Uecker

Some voices are part of your cultural life as far back as you can remember. You can probably name the music and musicians you first remember hearing, the earliest movies you saw, and the TV shows that go back to your childhood. When someone who has been around as long as you have dies, it gives you pause.

This is what happened for me with the announcement that Bob Uecker has died at the age of ninety. If you’re a baseball fan anywhere my age, you know who he was: a backup catcher with a variety of clubs and then the play-by-play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers since 1971.

His self-deprecating wit made him a regular fixture on late-night talk shows; Johnny Carson facetiously dubbed him “Mr. Baseball.” He hosted several sports blooper shows and appeared in numerous movies. The National Baseball Hall of Fame honored him in 2003 with its Ford C. Frick Award in recognition of his broadcasting career.

Who were your great-grandparents?

In a sense, Bob Uecker will live on as long as his movies, television appearances, and baseball recordings are watched and heard. But in another sense, his influence has already been waning as he aged to the degree that many of you are too young to know who he was.

His story is our story. Most people do something in their lives that lives beyond them, whether the world recognizes their role or not. Construction workers help construct buildings; musicians help write, produce, and record music; church leaders serve congregations; and so on. Their work may not be known to the masses, but it was vital to the projects to which they contributed.

But all of us, if the Lord tarries long enough, will eventually fade from daily communal consciousness. George Washington was the “father” of our nation, but how often did you think about him today? Abraham Lincoln was instrumental in saving the Union, but how often does he come to your thoughts?

Your great-grandparents were obviously essential in continuing the family line that produced you, but can you name them? I can’t name mine.

So it will be with your great-grandchildren if you and your family are blessed to have them. One day, unless the Lord returns first, the permanent reminder of most of our lives will be engraved on a tombstone that few people visit.

Two men who changed my life

However, my purpose is not to discourage but to encourage you. My point is simple:

You cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

Your every word and act of obedience to God invests in his eternal kingdom, leads to your eternal reward (1 Corinthians 3:11–15), and glorifies your Lord in heaven. This is not because we have the ability in ourselves to do transformative things that are sustained forever. It is because God is able to use us to do such things.

To illustrate: Every time you read something I write, you are continuing the ministry of Tony McGrady and Julian Unger, two men you likely never met. Five decades ago, they were active at College Park Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. When the church caught the vision for a “bus ministry” by which they could invite people in the community to come to worship, they took the lead. Tony organized the larger area, enlisted volunteers, and created strategies for knocking on doors and inviting people to ride the bus to church. Julian bought a school bus, repaired it, and drove it.

They and those they enlisted then went out into the community, knocking on doors on Saturday mornings to invite those they met to ride the bus the next morning to church. In August 1973, they knocked on our door. My brother and I rode their bus to church the next day and heard the gospel for the first time. We both came to faith eventually and are both active in vocational ministry still today.

Tony and Julian “planted trees they’ll never sit under,” reaching people who will reach people who will reach people.

When they invited me to church and to Christ, no one had heard of a digital ministry. No one had sent an email or posted to a website. But God knew then what I know today: that he would call and use me to speak his word to our world in these ways. And he knew when they knocked on my door that I would be privileged through digital media to knock on other doors around the world.

Why George Washington was right

My story is your story. God used someone in your past to bring you to the spiritual place you inhabit today. Every person you touch for Christ is an extension of the ministries that touched you. When you are faithful to God, he will reach others through the people you reach to the end of history.

The key is obedience. George Washington noted: “The whole duty of man is summed up in obedience to God’s will.”

Why is he right?

One: Obedience to God enables us to know him and then to make him known.

Jesus taught us, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). The closer we are to Christ, the better we are able to hear his voice and the better we are able to share his truth.

Eric Liddell, the martyred missionary whose story has inspired millions, observed: “Obedience to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight. It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God’s will that brings certainty.”

Two: Obedience to God is a decision we can each make today.

There is much we cannot do in the world without the permission and partnership of others. You cannot impact the world by writing a book unless someone reads it. Not many people build houses by themselves.

But we can each decide to be faithful to God today. We can “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). We can each choose to be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), to “take up [our] cross daily” and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23).

Jonathan Edwards, the greatest theologian in American history and preacher of the First Great Awakening, wrote: “Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.”

My mentor’s wise advice

When I became a pastor in Atlanta, Georgia, one of our members became a true mentor to me. John Haggai famously stated: “Attempt something so great for God, it’s doomed to failure unless God be in it.”

What will you attempt for God today?