We are Defined Not by our Failures, but by Christ's Victory
Vanga Mission Station, which first began in 1912
In the late 1800s a Canadian pharmacist, Dr. William Leslie, sensed God calling him to use his medical skills to advance the gospel on the continent of Africa. He set out for the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1895, joining the missions organization first pioneered by the famed Adoniram Judson in Burma. After a few years, Dr. Leslie met and married another missionary, and together they served in the DRC—offering medical treatment and the gospel.
In 1912, wanting to take the gospel to more remote indigenous people groups, the Leslies began to clear away dense—and reportedly leopard-infested—jungle along the Kwilu River to build the Vanga mission station. Some of the villages surrounding Vanga were still practicing cannibalism at that time. Clearing the jungle took immense effort and some time, but finally the Leslies built a home and a medical outpost along the river. They spent 17 years there, regularly setting out across the river from their station to offer both medical help and the gospel in a spiritually dark place.
It’s not totally clear what happened, but records show that after 17 years Dr. Leslie and his wife were asked by local tribal leaders to leave. There had been some kind of falling out and they were no longer welcome in or around Vanga. The Leslies abandoned their mission outpost and returned to the U.S. defeated—believing they had failed. They weren’t aware of any converts and certainly did not witness the planting of any churches. Dr. Leslie died nine years after his return, thinking his efforts in the DRC were in vain.
The Relatable Dr. Leslie
Do you ever feel like Dr. Leslie? Do you ever feel like you are giving it your all, but to no avail? Maybe you can relate to the broken relationships. Or even being rejected by the very people group you want to reach. I think if we’re honest we’d all say we’ve experienced some measure of what William Leslie and his wife endured—maybe even to the full extent or more.
How easy it is for us to fixate on our perceived failures. Or our sin. Or the many ways we fall short in ministry.
In missions—a job and a calling where it’s difficult, if not impossible, to measure success—it’s almost automatic to assume our glass is half empty, rather than half full.
The Relatable Apostle Peter
There’s a detail in the life of the Apostle Peter, though, that’s instructive here. And so I want to draw our attention to it.
I think we’re all drawn to Peter because he’s so relatable. We can see ourselves in him. He’s always putting his foot in his mouth. He’s close to the Lord Jesus. They have an intimate friendship. Peter gets a front row seat at the Transfiguration. He’s there for all kinds of miracles. He’s the first one to pronounce that Jesus is the Christ. Of course, Jesus then almost immediately says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan!”
But we love Peter because he’s the guy who is willing to get out of the boat and walk on water. He sinks, yes, but he took the risk.
We just celebrated Easter and so you likely just rehearsed in your churches the events of Jesus’s last week and his last night before the crucifixion. As you know, Jesus told Peter that Peter would deny him three times before morning. And Peter said, never Lord. But we know that he indeed did.
Matthew 26 reports, “Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. And a servant girl came up to him and said, ‘You also were with Jesus the Galilean.’ But he denied it before them all, saying, ‘I do not know what you mean.’ And when he went out to the entrance, another servant girl saw him, and she said to the bystanders, ‘This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ And again he denied it with an oath: ‘I do not know the man.’ After a little while the bystanders came up and said to Peter, 'Certainly you too are one of them, for your accent betrays you.’ Then he began to invoke a curse on himself and to swear, ‘I do not know the man.’ And immediately the rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:69-75).
The story is heart wrenching. We feel the pressure Peter felt when we read it. We imagine what we would do if we had been in Peter’s shoes. We get a sense of the crushing weight of defeat that Peter felt after his third prophesied denial.
You know how the story goes. Jesus is indeed murdered on the cross and his disciples scatter. They run and hide, fearing for their own lives. Hope is dead. They wonder if they’ll be next.
Days later, when Jesus rises from the dead and starts appearing to the disciples it’s shocking and terrifying and surreal. It’s praiseworthy of course—it’s the very best news! But it’s not what Jesus’s followers were anticipating.
Jesus’s Surprising (Re)Invitation
We’re told in John 21 that shortly after the resurrection, Peter and some of the other disciples were fishing all night, but caught nothing. In the scene, these fishermen—whom Jesus first called three years prior and said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”—see Jesus on the shore. He yells to them to cast their nets in a different place, and as you know likely know, they get a massive haul of fish.
The Apostle John finally recognizes Jesus and says, “Wait, that’s the Lord!” And Peter jumps into the sea and swims to his beloved friend and Messiah, the Lord Jesus. The disciples and Jesus have breakfast on the beach and an unsettling conversation ensues.
Jesus says to Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” And Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.”
Jesus says to him a second time, “Do you love me?” Peter says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.”
Jesus says to Peter the third time, “Do you love me?” And Peter is grieved and says “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” And Jesus says a third time, “Feed my sheep.”
And then, in verse 19, Jesus says again to Peter, “Follow me.”
Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Peter emphatically said yes each time. Jesus was giving Peter the opportunity to affirm his faith and love for his Savior three times, following his three denials.
You and I are not Defined by our Failures, but by Christ’s Victory
But here’s what I want you and me to see today. Here’s what I hope we each take back to our places of ministry: after Peter denied Jesus, after his failure, after he betrayed his Lord and his friend, after he lied about his relationship with the Christ—after all of that, Jesus said again to Peter, Follow me.
Jesus said it again in verse 22. Peter gets sidetracked and wonders about the Apostle John’s future. In response Jesus says, “What is that to you? Follow me.”
The last words we have recorded in scripture of our Lord to Peter are an emphatic and a repeated, “Follow me.”
Even after his failure and his sin and his cold betrayal, Jesus still said to Peter, follow me.
Essentially what Jesus is saying to Peter is: “your life is not going to be defined by your failures, but by my victory.”
Peter’s Living Hope and Ours
And it’s true! Peter is known through the ages for seeking to build Jesus’s church. He is remembered as a missionary and a martyr. He is known for his radical abandon in boldly proclaiming Christ, the one he formerly denied. He’s known for his two letters, which he penned to the early church.
Peter wrote to his brothers and sisters in the faith—those who were exiled because of the persecution that Christians endured in the first centuries. In his first letter he says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Peter 1:3-5).
We have a living hope. Our God lives. Peter saw the victory of Jesus and applied it to his life and ministry. Our inheritance kept in heaven, guarded, unfading, cannot be defiled.
Peter was not, in the end, defined by his failure. Even after he denied the Lord, Jesus said, Follow me. And Peter did! Ultimately, Peter was defined by his living hope, by his living Lord, who now lives and reigns in heaven.
Dr. Leslie’s Living Hope Too
So let’s go back to Dr. Leslie. We’ll fast forward 100 years from where we left off with his story.
In 2010, a short-term mission team set out for the Vanga mission station. They did a little preliminary research and expected to find the tribal groups near there yet unreached.
They flew into Kinshasa on a commercial airplane. Then they took a Cessna, operated by Mission Aviation Fellowship, two and half hours to Vanga. They hiked a mile through the jungle to the Kwilu River and then used dug-out canoes to cross the half-mile wide river, to finally arrive at the mission station. The team then backpacked 10 miles further into the jungle before coming into contact with the Yansi, the same tribe that the Leslies had ministered to a whole century before.
The team leader from that 2010 expedition reports, “When we got in there, we found a network of reproducing churches throughout the jungle. Each village had its own gospel choir, although they wouldn’t call it that. They wrote their own songs and would have sing-offs from village to village.”
The team found a church in each of the eight villages they visited, scattered across 34 miles. They even found a 1000-seat stone “cathedral” in one of the villages. They were told that church got so crowded in the 1980s – with many walking miles to attend — that a church planting movement began in the surrounding areas.
They did some investigating and interviewing and discovered that the spiritual roots of this network of jungle churches went back to Dr. Leslie and his wife. The Leslies left the mission field dejected and discouraged, believing they had failed. Dr. Leslie died believing his work had been fruitless. But one hundred years later, the evidence says otherwise.
In Vanga and the surrounding villages, Jesus built his church. In spite of these missionaries’ perceived failure, even in spite of rejection and relational fallout, Jesus built his church.
Jesus Will Build His Church
Friends, the enemy seeks to rob us of our joy as we press on in service to Jesus. My invitation to you this week is to reconnect to Jesus and his victory. Connect with Christ once again. Drink of the living water. Eat the bread that satisfies. Remember that you are hidden in Christ.
He says to you and me, again and again, no matter what we’ve done, Follow me. Even in spite of our failures, and betrayals, and sins, and finitude, Jesus repeats “Feed my sheep.” Like Peter, you and I are not defined by our failure, we are defined by our Savior and his victory.
Who knows what short-term teams will find in your region when they visit in 100 years? No doubt, on this spiritually dark continent of Europe, where progress feels slow and your work can often be a long, hard slog, you can relate to Dr. Leslie. No doubt at times, you too despair.
Press on in faith, friends. Jesus will build his church. Our lives and our ministries will not be defined by our failures. They will be defined by Jesus’s victory.
Author’s Note:
Special thanks to Mark Ellis, the founder and writer at God Reports, who first told this story. I drew heavily on his reporting, drawing from this article and other articles, which quoted it: https://www.godreports.com/2014/05/missionary-died-thinking-he-was-a-failure-84-years-later-thriving-churches-found-hidden-in-the-jungle/
Additionally, these are the notes of a message I delivered at a missions conference in Europe in May 2023. I transferred my notes for an oral message to this article. I pray it’s useful to all who serve the Lord and read it.