“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

In his letter to the Thessalonian believers, Paul said that we should give thanks in everything. That sounds nice in theory, but tends to fall apart in practice. This is because there are things that happen to us on occasion that we are not thankful for. Sometimes we are rather unthankful for them. How do you respond when something that seems irredeemably bad happens? Frustration? Anger? Righteous indignation? As if offering a case study for the Thessalonians, Paul here follows his own command, giving us a pretty interesting perspective. Let’s check it out.

Paul’s circumstances were pretty grim. As we have already talked about and will yet talk about some more, he was in prison in Rome. Far from being a cushy gig, though, it would have been pretty rough. The psychological terror of knowing his death was likely imminent aside, his Roman captors would not have likely provided much food for him. He was probably chained to a guard or two to prevent escape. The conditions were likely poor at best. And all of this was because of his efforts to proclaim and advance the Gospel. To put that another way, this was all Jesus’ fault.

The range of possible emotions we might feel in this situation is wide, but they mostly all tread toward the negative. What good was going to come out of his being in chains when there was a whole city, a whole region, a whole world around him that needed to hear the Gospel? He had been doing such good and effective work for years. Why was he now being punished like this? Had Jesus abandoned him? This was unfair. It wasn’t right. He deserved better than this. At least, that’s all probably where I would land in a situation like Paul was facing.

But look where Paul was at on the whole thing. “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.” That was Paul’s only concern. Well, he expresses some other concerns later in the letter, but none of them register with any of those feelings I just described. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul describes his passion, but more than that, his commission from Jesus to preach the Gospel. He didn’t have a choice but to preach. The Holy Spirit wouldn’t leave him alone unless he was actively advancing the Gospel. As long as that was happening, he would put up with pretty much anything else. Well, here while he was in prison, the Gospel was being advanced. That was enough for him.

Now, does this mean Paul was happy about being in prison? Of course not. I am entirely certain that he would have been glad for Jesus to have positioned him just about anywhere else to do the work he had been called to do. But the work was being done here. His imprisonment had “actually advanced the gospel.” That was enough for him. He could praise the Lord for that. He could commit himself to making sure the work continued right where he was even if where he was wasn’t the place he would have preferred to be; even if where he was was somewhere objectively terrible to be.

And that’s just what he did. He didn’t give up just because he had lost his freedom. Like he had already done when he was thrown in jail in other places, he continued to proclaim the Gospel to anyone who would listen. Maybe God would break open the prison for him like He did in Philippi, but maybe He wouldn’t. It didn’t matter either way. Rome may have thought they were going to be able to shut him up by putting him in chains, but instead, they simply gave him a captive audience. “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.”

That doesn’t mean the whole imperial guard had become followers of Jesus, but they at least knew why he was there under their…care. He was there because he had been faithful to his God and now Rome was punishing him for it. Sure, in the minds of some guards, this would have been taken as a mark of the impotency of his God before the obviously stronger Roman gods, but some would have at least entertained the notion that a God who could command such faithfulness as Paul was demonstrating must be a very powerful and glorious God indeed. In other words, Paul took the situation he was in, and turned it into a Gospel situation. As I’ll tell my church this coming Sunday morning: Any situation can become a Gospel situation. All it takes is a little faithfulness on our part.

A growing knowledge of the Gospel among the imperial guard wasn’t the only thing that was coming out of Paul’s imprisonment. The believers there in Rome knew about his imprisonment. They understood what his fate would likely be. And yet they also saw his continued faithfulness; his continued willingness to proclaim the Gospel wherever he happened to be. This was serving as an inspiration and an encouragement for them to proclaim the Gospel with increasing boldness. “Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.” If Paul could do it, so could they. If Paul could proclaim the Gospel so fearlessly from prison, they could do it wherever they happened to be as well.

This is all pretty incredible in terms of encouraging us to take advantage of every opportunity we have to proclaim the Gospel. But this is even more helpful in terms of giving us a new rubric for evaluating our circumstances. We typically look at our circumstances through the lens of personal convenience and pronounce them as good or bad based on that. In Paul’s situation, we would naturally say this was a bad situation because it was deeply personally inconvenient. There aren’t many things more inconvenient than prison, especially when we are there unjustly. But what if we used a different lens to see our situations?

What if our primary lens for evaluating our circumstances was whether or not we were able to advance the Gospel in them? This may seem bad, but it opened up a door for me to have a Gospel conversation with someone who had never heard it before. I really don’t like where God has me, but I have been able to talk about my faith with several people I would have never met otherwise. Everything around me seems like it’s going against me right now, but as I have sought to live out of the character of Christ all the same, a number of people have commented that they are feeling inspired to do the same.

Now, instead of seeing circumstances that are all bad from the outside-looking-in as nothing but negative, we have reason for hope. We have reason for gratitude. We have reason for joy. We have reason to keep trusting God and living out of the righteousness of Christ because even though this isn’t the place we would have chosen to be on our own, He is still using our faithfulness to advance His kingdom, and that’s what He has called us to follow Him to do. We are living in line with our most fundamental purpose. That doesn’t make the situation any easier, but it does give us the hope and encouragement we need to keep pressing forward toward Him through it.

This can be the outcome of any situation we are facing. It doesn’t matter what it is. There is always the opportunity to share the Gospel with another person, advancing the kingdom of God in some meaningful way. And if we join Paul in making that the goal of our entire life, then no matter where we happen to be, we can be actively pursuing God’s design for us. We can be always doing the thing God created us to do and experiencing the satisfaction and joy pursuing and achieving that end brings.

So, what kind of circumstances are you facing right now? Are they easier or harder? Are you looking to see them continue indefinitely because they are that good, or are you looking everywhere…anywhere…for an exit strategy? No matter what happens to be going on in your life right now, you can be living on track with God’s plan for and call on your life. You can be experiencing the kind of kingdom joy that stubbornly persists through any situation. That, my friends, is the secret to unending peace and hope and joy. I hope you’ll pursue it.