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Judges 8:22–35; James 5:16; Deuteronomy 8:11–14
Most people don't drift from God all at once; it happens slowly, when they stop paying attention. Pastor Max Lyons looks at the rarely preached ending of Gideon's story in Judges 8, where a man God called and used mightily slides into idolatry after his greatest victory. He names five signs of drifting and shows how confessing sin early to a trusted person keeps a small drift from carrying us far down the coast.
Key takeaways
- To drift you don't have to do anything; the current of a fallen world carries anyone who stops pursuing God.
- Drift usually begins not with failure but with success, which leads to comfort, then complacency, then drift.
- You are drifting when you live differently in public than in private, when you want the things of God but not God Himself, or when you want God on your terms rather than His.
- Nobody goes from zero to adultery overnight; drift compounds over years, and it affects spouses, children, churches, and communities.
- Confess sin early to a trustworthy person, not just to God in private, because what is spoken out loud can be dealt with and healed.
Message notes
Caught in the current
Fresh from a conference in Charleston where he and Pastor Juliet received prophetic words about the church, its leaders, and future buildings, Pastor Max opens with a story from his Bible college years in Sydney. Floating in the ocean one afternoon, he looked up to find he recognized nothing on the beach; a longshore current had carried him down the coast. To drift, he had to do nothing. Life has a current too, and if we do nothing the broken world sweeps us somewhere we never intended to go. Drift is not a decision but a loss of attention, and it usually starts not with failure but with success: a win leads to comfort, comfort to complacency, and complacency to drift. He recalls his dominant summer baseball team losing to the worst team in the league after relaxing between games. "When you stop pursuing, you start drifting."
Gideon's greater enemy
Most sermons on Gideon cover his calling in the winepress, the fleece, or the 300 men who defeated Midian. Pastor Max turns instead to what happened afterward in Judges 8:22–35, a passage he has never heard preached. Gideon's greater adversary was not the Midianite army but his own success, and his story is tragic because it should have ended so well.
Sign 1: You live differently in public than in private
When Israel asks Gideon to rule, he gives the right answer: the Lord will rule over you. Yet verse 30 reveals seventy sons, many wives, a concubine in Shechem, and a son named Abimelech, which means my father is the king. Gideon said one thing and lived another. Pastor Max recalls a Little League coach who said do as I say, not as I do, which is fine for a coach but not for a follower of Jesus. He speaks directly to parents: children do not do what you say, they do what you do. If Jesus and His house are not visibly a priority in your life, they will not be in your children's.
Sign 2: You want the things of God but not God Himself
Gideon takes the Midianite gold and makes an ephod, a garment meant for the priests, and it becomes an idol. What should have pointed people to God replaced Him. Pastor Max tells of a man in Elan Church's early days who came broken after a layoff, was prayed for, received a job three months later, and never returned. God is either the goal or a means to an end. Jesus is not a get-out-of-hell-free card; He is the goal. Deuteronomy 8 warns that the land, the harvest, and the gold must never turn us from the Lord. Never let the blessing become an idol that pulls you away from the One who gave it.
Sign 3: You want God on your terms, not His
Gideon puts the ephod in his own city rather than where God intended, trading God-centered worship for self-centered convenience. People have preferences about music, sports, and sleep, but God has preferences too. The Hebrew word yadah means praise with raised hands, which is why we lift hands in worship and prayer whether or not it suits us. Gideon did not reject God; he customized God around himself.
Sign 4: Your drift affects the people around you
All Israel worshiped the ephod and it became a snare to Gideon's family. Pastor Max shares about a pastor at his first church, the least likely man imaginable to commit adultery, who did. Nobody trips and falls into adultery; it is unaddressed arguments becoming bitterness, bitterness becoming unforgiveness, unforgiveness becoming entitlement, and a void that pornography and other people are invited to fill. The fallout touched his wife, children, church, and community. The best time to confess sin was when it started; the second best time is now. James 5:16 says to confess to one another, not only to God, because secrets drive drift and what is brought into the open can be healed. He and Pastor Juliet talk about issues at a one or two, never waiting for a ten, and he wants Elan Church to be the easiest place in the world to confess sin early.
Sign 5: You prioritize your needs but neglect God's presence
Verses 29 to 35 describe Gideon's house, wives, and children, with no mention of God at all. He stopped pursuing and wound up in idolatry. If you don't pray, read, or value God's house like you once did, deal with it now. If the devil cannot get you to turn from God, he will try to get you to drift.
From drifting to drafting
Change one letter and drifting becomes drafting, following someone so closely that they break the wind for you. When we draft behind Jesus there is no room to drift. Pastor Max admits his own drifts: dating a non-believer as a young Christian and falling in with the wrong friends in college. The question is not whether you are drifting but where. His closing challenge is to reach out before the day ends to one trusted person who loves God, loves you, and loves the church, and say out loud what you are struggling with, because that is where healing begins.
