Music courtesy of The Falls Church Anglican Choir, Falls Church, Virginia, under the musical direction of Simon Dixon. Audio mastering by Andrew Schooley. From Messiah by George Frideric Handel (1742)

Listen to the full playlist for Handel’s Messiah.

A garden flag outside the home of my daughter and her family waves this Scripture text from Romans 8. At once I both loved it and was puzzled by it. What a forthright sentiment to place on a garden flag. Who would do that?

But how wonderful to put such intense meaning on a garden flag. YES, God is for us so much that He delivered up His own Son. And if God would do that, it doesn’t matter who in the world could possibly be against us. That garden flag proclaims loud and clear “This is truth and we are going to live like it.” Similarly, the opening of this aria puts on repeat “If God is for us…”

Think about it. GOD is for us. God IS for us. God is FOR us. God is for US. There is no Damocles blade hanging over your head, because GOD IS FOR YOU.

My heart is stirred by the judgment referred to here in Romans. Handel said that he wrote the Messiah “to make us better.” We are to be better by understanding what we are spared from—God’s just judgment.

Our sin poised us for judgment, for condemnation. Yet we are released from that judgment and condemnation because of the intercession of His Son, whom God did not spare, but gave freely for us. So who dares to charge God’s people with any condemnation?

The world needs more garden flags with this type of authentic meaning and confidence, don’t you think? A great Advent reminder—He still makes intercession for us. Let’s answer Handel’s hope—let’s be better. “If God be for us, who can be against us?”