Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

1.   The National Cathedral is the 6th largest cathedral in the world. Construction of this Episcopal Cathedral began on September 29, 1907, when the foundation stone was laid by President Theodore Roosevelt. The completion of the west towers in September 1990 marked the end of eighty-three years of construction.
2.  Although it’s known to everyone as St. Basil’s, this legendary building is officially called “The Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin by the Moat”.
The Cathedral was ordered by Ivan the Terrible to mark the 1552 capture of Kazan from Mongol forces. It was completed in 1560. That’s pretty much all the genuine history that’s known about this celebrated landmark.
Architectural specialists are to this day unable to agree about the governing idea behind the structure. Either the creators were paying homage to the churches of Jerusalem, or, by building eight churches around a central ninth, they were representing the medieval symbol of the eight-pointed star. The original concept of the Cathedral of the Intercession has been hidden from us beneath layers of stylistic additions and new churches added to the main building. In fact, when built, the Cathedral was all white to match the white-stone Kremlin, and the onion domes were gold rather than multi-colored and patterned as they are today.
In the 17th century a hip-roofed bell tower was added, the gallery and staircases were covered with vaulted roofing, and the helmeted domes were replaced with decorated ones. In 1860 during rebuilding, the Cathedral was painted with a more complex and integrated design, and has remained unchanged since.
The Cathedral is now a museum. One service a year is held in the Cathedral, on the Day of Intercession in October.
3.  Ananda Temple. This Buddhist temple was completed in 1091 A.D. by King Kyanzittha. It is modeled after the legendary Nandamula cave in the Himalaya mountains. Soaring to 51 meters, it received its golden gilding in 1990 in commemeration of the 900th anniversary of its construction.
4.   Mormon Temple in Las Vegas.  Ask someone about Las Vegas, and you’ll typically get answers the describe lavish night-life, glitzy gamblng, and huge hotels. There is more to “Sin City” than just gambling and tourism, however. It is also the home to a rich and diverse religious community. One facet of that community is exemplified in the lives of the area’s tens of thousands of Mormons.
The Las Vegas Mormon temple was the Church’s forty-third operating temple, dedicated at the end of 1989.
5.  Solomon’s Temple - 180 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 50 feet high. Solomon spares no expense in the building’s creation. He orders vast quantities of cedar from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:20-25), has huge blocks of the choicest stone quarried, and commands that the building’s foundation be laid with hewn stone. To complete the massive project, he imposes forced labor on all his subjects, drafting people for work shifts lasting a month at a time. Some 3,300 officials are appointed to oversee the Temple’s erection (5:2730). Solomon assumes such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram with twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11).
When the Temple is completed, Solomon inaugurates it with prayer and sacrifice, and even invites non - Jews to come and pray there. He urges God to pay particular heed to their prayers: “Thus all the peoples of the earth will know Your name and revere You, as does Your people Israel; and they will recognize that Your name is attached to this House that I have built” (I Kings 8:43).
Until the Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians some four hundred years later, in 586 B.C.E., sacrifice was the predominant mode of divine service there. Seventy years later, a second Temple was built on the same site, and sacrifices again resumed. During the first century B.C.E., Herod greatly enlarged and expanded this Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E., after the failure of the Great Revolt.
Beautiful
Meant to honor and glorify God.
Time and sacrifice to build…Reverent purpose of worshi
The Temple that God is building…
1 Peter 2:4-10 “As you come to him, the living Stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him- “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.                                                  For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” “Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,” “and, “A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message-which is also what they were destined for. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” NIV

The Living Stone
The centrality of Christ!
He is the keystone!
People become a part of the temple God is building only by being joined by faith to Jesus!
Those who reject him find themselves a part of the ash heap of history!

1.    As you come to him
When people come to Christ and put their faith in Him they are at the same time coming into the true church.

The divine society (community, family) that stretches back throughout history made up of all those who’ve placed their faith in Christ…Yehweh God.

2.    He is the living stone
Chosen and precious to God
Passed over and a stumbling block to human builders

Dressed and cut and ready to be incorporated in a building.
Passed over or even rejected by the builders as unfit.

The human builders were wrong - the stepped over Him as a stumbling block and hindrance to what they were buidling

The architect has chosen this Stone as the corner stone.

Today, a cornerstone is a ceremonial masonry stone, or replica, set in a prominent location on the outside of a building, with an inscription on the stone indicating the construction dates of the building and the names of architect, builder and other significant individuals. The rite of laying a cornerstone is an important cultural component of western architecture and metaphorically in sacred architecture generally.

Some cornerstones include time capsules from the time a particular building was built. Psalm 118:22 quoted 6 times in NT.

ἀκρογωνιαῖος ἀκρογωνιαῖος
G204 (2/13) cornerstone, capstone
Ephesians 2:20    apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
1 Peter 2:6    Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in

ἀκρογωνιαῖος [akrogoniaios “chief corner” placed at an extreme corner, the corner foundation stone.

γωνία γωνία
G1137 (5/13) adj, corner
Matthew 21:42    builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone; This came about from the
Mark 12:10    stone which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone;
Luke 20:17    which the builders rejected, This became the chief corner stone’?
Acts 4:11    rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone.
1 Peter 2:7    which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,”

AV translates as “corner” eight times, 1a an external angle, a corner.

Psalm 118:22 “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone;” NIV

Matthew 21:42 “Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

Mark 12:10 “Haven’t you read this scripture: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone;” NIV

Luke 20:17 “Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written: “‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?” NIV

Acts 4:11 “He is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’” NIV

A capstone or coping stone is one of the finishing or protective stones that form the top of an exterior masonry wall or building. The term is also used for the stones making up the covering structure of an archaeological tomb

Ephesians 2:20 “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” NIV

The cornerstone concept is derived from the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation, important since all other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire edifice.

Living stone - metaphor referring to the resurrection of Christ.

1.    To God: chosen and precious
1. Of high cost or worth; valuable. 2. Highly esteemed; cherished. 3. Dear; beloved.

2.    To the builders
Rejected stumbling block

What is your relationship to Christ?
John 20:    “My Lord and my God!”

3.    To those who come

2:7 precious
Results:
~ chosen people
~ royal priesthood
~ holy nation
~ belong to God

In a world of pressure and darkness, don’t forget who you are!
I Peter - the handbook on how to suffer well
-    Pressure to conform
-    Pressure to deny
-
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” NIV

Matthew 23:27-28 “”Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. “In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” NIV

John Edwards
Bruce Ivans
Friday Aug. 1, 2008 05:36 EDT
Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News
The FBI’s lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks — Bruce E. Ivins — died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks.

For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government’s biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease