The Least Asked Most Important Question of Our Time

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Wake-Up Call

Episode: The Least Asked Most Important Question of Our Time
Host: John David Walt (with David Walt and Sam)
Date: May 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Wake-Up Call centers around the provocative question: “What if we are all asleep?” Host John David Walt explores whether believers, despite their knowledge and observance, may still be spiritually “asleep” and in need of a deeper awakening. Drawing from Ephesians 5:14, the episode challenges listeners to reflect on the ongoing reality of resurrection and the call to genuine transformation, not just intellectual assent or routine participation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Reflection and Consecration

• The episode opens with John David Walt urging listeners to “wake up, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” (00:05)
• Emphasis on consecration: coming before Jesus with nothing but oneself, acknowledging our need for Him, and beginning the day by offering ourselves as a “living sacrifice.”
  • “I think the thing he really comes wondering is do we want him? He knows we need him.” (01:24)

2. The Challenging Question

• The main theme unfolds with Walt’s daring question:
  • “What if we are all asleep?” (03:44)
• He explains this isn’t about doubting anyone’s faithfulness or beliefs, but about recognizing there may be more to spiritual life than what is commonly experienced:
  • “I’m not questioning our beliefs or commitment or resolve as a people...But I ask, what if we are all asleep?” (04:19)
  • “One thing is for sure, if that were the case, we wouldn’t know it.” (04:39)
• Walt connects this with the tendency to treat Easter as a historical event rather than a present and perpetual reality:
  • “Could it be that our biggest mistake is to somehow file Easter as history?” (03:04)

3. The Need for Awakening

• Echoing the central Scripture (Ephesians 5:14), Walt suggests that true Resurrection power is meant to transform daily life, not just be remembered annually.
• He prompts:
  • “What if there is no day after Easter? What if there is only Easter today, tomorrow and forever? Resurrection.” (07:13)

4. Prayer for Awakening

• Walt prays for a “holy discontent” and “great awakening”—personal, communal, national, and global.
  • “We confess we know there is more than we know. And we declare we want to know it.” (08:02)
  • “I need a greater awakening than the one I’ve known. I just want to give you permission today, Jesus, in this meeting, to start with me...I think I may be asleep more than I realize.” (08:40)

5. Knowledge Versus Knowing

• Walt distinguishes between intellectual knowledge and experiential knowing:
  • “Our knowing has to catch up with our knowledge. In fact, our knowing needs to transcend our knowledge.” (10:11)
  • Refers to Ephesians 3 and the prayer “to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” (10:24)
• He critiques the “education paradigm” that prevails in many churches, advocating instead for a “transformation approach.”
  • “Education is good, but transformation is better...Awakening grows as knowing grows—a knowing that surpasses knowledge.” (11:18)

6. Scriptural and Historical Examples

• Cites biblical moments when God’s people were unaware of their spiritual slumber:
  • Josiah’s reform (2 Kings 22): Rediscovering the Book of the Law during a temple renovation (12:15)
  • Paul in Ephesus (Acts 19): “We didn’t know there was a Holy Spirit.” (13:11)
  • The Reformation: “They didn’t know they were asleep.” (13:41)
• The common theme: “You don’t know it when you’re asleep, people.” (13:16)

7. Journal Prompts for Listeners

• Walt offers reflection questions:

  1. How do you respond to the question: What if we are all asleep?
  2. Think of times in Scripture or history when everyone was asleep and didn’t know it.
  3. On a scale of 1–10, what is your level of holy discontent? Describe it.

  (14:19)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On spiritual sleep:
  • “What if we are all asleep? …If that were the case, we wouldn’t know it.” (04:39)
• On knowing versus knowledge:
  • “Our knowing needs to transcend our knowledge…there is a knowing that is much bigger than just knowledge.” (10:11)
• On awakening:
  • “I need a greater awakening than the one I’ve known. I just want to give you permission today, Jesus, in this meeting, to start with me. I’ll go first.” (08:40)
• On church culture:
  • “I’ve lived in a church for most of my life that…bought into what we might call an education paradigm, as opposed to a transformation approach.” (10:51)
• On recurring Easter:
  • “What if there is no day after Easter? What if there is only Easter today, tomorrow and forever?” (07:13)
• On community and singing:
  • “He wants us to know him. That’s why every day we begin by saying, Jesus, I belong to you.” (20:26)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• Opening Encouragement & Scripture – (00:05–02:40)
• Introducing the Big Question – (03:44–05:30)
• Reflection on Easter as Ongoing Reality – (05:50–07:17)
• Prayer for Awakening – (07:36–09:07)
• Difference between Knowledge and Knowing – (10:11–11:31)
• Scriptural Examples of Slumber – (12:15–13:41)
• Journal/Reflection Prompts – (14:19–15:30)
• Community Song: “Knowing You” by Graham Kendrick – (16:21–19:33)
• Closing Encouragement & Blessing – (20:01–21:36)

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Tone & Delivery

• Warm, invitational, and gently provocative—John David Walt’s approach is pastoral, reflective, and earnest.
• The episode maintains its signature blend of earnest challenge and encouragement, inviting listeners not merely to learn, but to encounter Christ afresh and be truly awakened.

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Final Takeaways

• The heart of the episode asks whether our routines, knowledge, and faithfulness could mask a deeper need for awakening and transformation.
• Listeners are left with practical prompts to search their hearts and seek a present-tense Resurrection in their daily lives.
• Through prayer, reflection, and song, the episode embodies its call: to wake up, seek a deeper “knowing” of Jesus, and sow goodness in the world.

Transcript

[Sam]

Foreign.

[John David Walt]

Good morning. You hear me out here, you hear I'm knocking on your, your, your door today. I'm saying it's time to get up. It's time to wake up, sleeper, and rise from the dead. And Christ will shine on you. It is Saturday, May the 20. Golly, May 9th. What am I saying? 29th, May 9th, Saturday in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt, and this is your wake up call. I just want to thank you for bearing with me through that challenging post of yesterday. It was challenging in the first instance. In its length, okay, it was too long, I, I'll grant you that. But it was also a difficult subject and challenging word for our time. And if you did get the book, if you have the book, I'd encourage you to spend some time with it, go back and read it. I mean, you can read the email, I guess, if you're getting that. But there was a lot there, too much for morning devotion. So today we're going to be shorter and more to the point and hopefully maybe a happier theme. But let's begin as is always our way in our meeting with Jesus, with consecration, just kind of showing up with, with nothing but ourself. We're not bringing anything to the table that he particularly needs. He wants us all right, but he doesn't need us. I think the thing he really comes wondering is do we want him? He knows we need him. So wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, today's entry is entitled the Least Asked, Most Important Question of Our Time. Well, I'm swinging, swinging big today. Our text is our favorite. Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 14b. Hear now the word of the Lord. Therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. Could it be that our biggest mistake is to somehow file Easter as history? Do we think of it as an event in the past that we remember and celebrate, like an anniversary or a birthday or a holiday? We wake up early, dress nicely, pack the church, say the words, sing the songs, say amen and eat a huge lunch. Sure, we are glad after Easter, but it's more of a glad like we won the Big game. Churches will talk about the crowds. Families will talk about their celebrations. If we're honest, though, can't we admit that a lot of Easters feel the same? I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but I do have a deeply challenging question to ask. It may offend you. I don't mean to. I ask it as much of myself as I do you. I believe it may be the least asked, most important question of our time. It may strike you as incredulous or even absurd. I'll stop now and just ask it. What if we are all asleep? What if we are all asleep? I'm not questioning our beliefs or commitment or resolve as a people. We're pretty faithful to our faith as we understand it. We know a lot. We do a lot. We are pretty sure we get it and are in it to win it. But I ask, what if we are all asleep? One thing is for sure, if that were the case, we wouldn't know it. I don't mean to say we don't love Jesus and do our best to follow him. Clearly we know what we know. It's more like we don't know what we don't know. Could that be the case? Don't you think there's got to be a whole lot more than what we know and have experienced? Wouldn't things be different in our lives, our families, our cities, the world, if the true power of the Resurrection were in us? What if we are all asleep? Well, we would need to be awakened. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Might this be Paul's point? What if there is no day after Easter? What if there is only Easter today, tomorrow and forever? Resurrection. Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Let's pray. Abba Father, we thank you for your son, Jesus, the Risen One, the one who destroyed death by death. Would you awaken us to the kind of holy discontent that leads us to let go of the status quo? We confess we know there is more than than we know. And we declare we want to know it. It's another way of saying we want to know you more. We need a great awakening. Personal, corporately, nationally, globally. We need a great awakening. And I'll say I need a greater awakening than the one I've known. I just want to give you permission today, Jesus, in this meeting, to start with me. I'll go first. I know I'm awake to some degree, but I think I may be asleep more than I realize. Yes. So come on, Jesus. Praying in your name. Amen. Yeah, you know, oftentimes you've heard me say it. The greatest impediment or obstacle to my own awakening is this. I'm pretty sure I'm already awake. You know, sometimes what gets in the way is all of our knowledge. I mean, a lot of people listening, watching, reading, this, you know a lot. You've. You've been to a thousand Bible studies, you've been to a 10,000 church services. Maybe it's a stretch, but, you know, you got a lot of knowledge, you've learned a lot of things. But you know what has to to catch up? Our knowing has to catch up with our knowledge. In fact, our knowing needs to transcend our knowledge. That's that prayer in Ephesians 3, he said, and I pray that you will know this love, know this love that surpasses knowledge. There is a knowing that is much bigger than just knowledge. And I'll say it. I've lived in a church for most of my life that really largely bought into what we might call them an education paradigm, as opposed to a transformation approach. And you know, education is good, but transformation is better. And it's not that there's no education in transformation. It's that if you don't start with transformation, education will never really get there. You'll just start going to the next Bible study, you'll read the next book, you'll do the next devotion. You'll just keep adding to your knowledge base. And that will never get us to the place of an ever deepening awakening. Awakening grows as knowing grows a knowing that surpasses knowledge. And we're not. You can't make that happen. You know what, what that requires? It requires a kind of humbling yourself in the sight of the Lord and asking the kind of question I'm pitching to us today. This probably feels offensive, like I said to some people, but what if we're all asleep? All right, I got a few journal prompts for us on this Saturday. Number one, how do you respond to that question of the day? What if we are all asleep? Just what if? Run with that a minute. Number two, can you think of a time in Scripture or since that since scripture, the book, the canon was closed when everyone was asleep? I mean, I think back to in the Bible, what was it? Josiah's reform, when everything was rocking right along, they were doing a temple remodeling project, another building project, and they discovered somebody came across a book, they didn't even know what it was, and they took it to the King and someone started reading it to the king, and he's like, oh, my goodness, this is the word of God. And he knew they were in deep trouble based on what it was saying because they had lost God's word and nobody even knew it. That's the point. Nobody was aware of it. And there it was. Or maybe that day when Paul shows up in Ephesus the first time there, and. And they're going right along with the church business and doing their discipleship. And he's like, something's missing here. He said, did you guys receive the Holy Spirit? When you believe. Remember what they said? We didn't know there was a Holy Spirit. They didn't know they were asleep. That's my point. You don't know it when you're asleep, people. You don't know it when you wake up after you kind of maybe fell asleep on the couch. What's the first thing you say? How long was I asleep? You don't know it. Okay, I'm gonna stop preaching. It's Saturday. We gotta get on the fields this day. But, yeah, the Reformation, the great reformation of the 16th century. It's another one of those moments when they didn't know they were asleep. Martin Luther was reading the Bible and comes across Romans, you know, chapter one. And I could go on you. You journal about that last question. On a scale of 1 to 10, scaling are my favorite kinds of questions. 10 is the highest. What is your level of holy discont? I think you remember what we're talking about. I want you to describe it, okay? Not malcontent, but not morbid introspection here, but, like, you just kind of know that you know that there's more than you know, and you're not okay with it. You're more and more not okay with it. And you're like, jesus, I'm. I'm. I'm coming. I'm leaning in. All right, well, Dad's here. We're gonna sing a great song. We'll hand it over right now. Well, everyone, we're ready to sing. Who's ready to sing?

[Sam]

I am.

[John David Walt]

All right. Dad's ready. I'm ready. I sense you're ready. Jesus is ready. I think it must please him to see us out here just doing our best to sing hymn songs and to get his song in our soul before we get out on the road today.

[David Walt]

Amen.

[John David Walt]

Because there's something about starting the day with a song that you can sing it all day long. And today we're going to sing. Tell them what we're singing, dad, knowing

[David Walt]

you, that this is a new one to us.

[John David Walt]

Newer song. When was it written?

[David Walt]

It was written in 1950.

[John David Walt]

Yeah, well, probably later than that, but that's when he was born. This is a guy. Graham Kendrick, who's from England, is just a gifted hymn writer and probably wrote this one in the 80s, late 80s. But what's the page number?

[David Walt]

125.

[John David Walt]

125. 125. In our great redeemer's praise. Knowing you. And like dad said, you may not know it, but you'll pick it up and we'll sing verses one and three. You ready?

[David Walt]

Yeah.

[Sam]

All I once held dear, built my life upon all this world revealed and was to. I have have but lost and worthless now compared to this. Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing. You're my all, you're my love, righteousness. And I love you, Lord.

[John David Walt]

Sing verse two.

[Sam]

Now, my heart's desire is to know you more, to be found in you. And know yours. To possess by faith what I could not earn. All professing gift of righteousness. Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no thing. You're thy all, you're malice. You're thy righteousness. And I love you, Lord.

[John David Walt]

Last verse.

[Sam]

Oh, to know the power of your risen life. And to know you in your sufferings, to become like you in your death, my Lord, so with you to live and never die.

[John David Walt]

Sing it to him.

[Sam]

Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no other thing. You're my law. You're my. You're my. My righteousness. And I love you, Lord.

[John David Walt]

You like that one?

[David Walt]

I do. I like that one.

[John David Walt]

I mean, that's knowing you, Jesus.

[David Walt]

That's pretty plain.

[John David Walt]

There is no greater thing.

[David Walt]

That's right.

[John David Walt]

And.

[David Walt]

And it's open to anybody, indeed.

[John David Walt]

He wants to know you. You know, I think he sings that over us. Knowing you, David.

[David Walt]

Yeah.

[John David Walt]

There is no greater thing. He sings it to you. Knowing you, Phyllis, knowing you, Sarah, knowing you, Peter, knowing you, Robert, there is no greater thing. He wants us to know him. That's why every day we begin by saying, jesus, I belong to you. That's what we do. Because that gets us ready for the road. And now it's time to hit that road.

[David Walt]

It is.

[John David Walt]

We got good to do today. We got good to sow. We're going to sow much good today in this world. And there's going to be something growing in the future because we sowed today.

[David Walt]

That's right.

[John David Walt]

So be extravagant with it. You will never run out of this kind of seed. Well, any closing words?

[David Walt]

Well, we pray for everyone that heard our voice today that they have a good rest of the week.

[John David Walt]

We're praying for you. We know you're praying for us. For The Awakening. I'm J.D. walt.

[David Walt]

And I'm David. Walt. We'll see you on the field,

[Sam]

Sam.