Sustained by Sovereign Grace

The question is asked: What is grace?

Answers are given: Unmerited favor; good things that happen to us; the smile of God.

I don't know that any of these answers really explain grace. But I think this poem does explain both what grace is not and what grace is:

Not grace to bar what is not bliss,
Nor flight from all distress, but this:

The grace that orders our trouble and pain,
And then, in the darkness, is there to sustain.

John Piper

Read the sermon that this poem came from: Sustained by Sovereign Grace—Forever
Or listen to the sermon.