Vince’s Guide to Beat Anger, Find Freedom

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The On Target Institute presents a teaching from the Men On Target small group curriculum. Now with today's session, On Target founder, Vince Dacchioli. Man, how you doing? Welcome to session 10 of On Target Institute. It's so good to be with you.

The title for this session is Overcoming Our Past, Dealing With Anger. If you remember in our last session, we dealt with fear as the underlying thing that always precedes all of these other issues we're going to be talking about. But in this session, we're going to be dealing with anger as the second of the four things that we are going to go through. Fear, anger, unforgiveness, and guilt. You remember our verses, Philippians 3, 13, and 14.

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken all of it, but here's what Paul says. One thing I do, he says, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward that goal, the target, to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Paul knew how important it was to become a man that God intended. Now, as we get into this whole idea of anger, I want to suggest to you that anger really is really nothing more than a mask for fear.

Most psychologists will tell you that. Fear is usually always the underlying emotion. If you really deal with someone who's a very angry person, typically underneath, there is some kind of fear or insecurity that's at work here. But here's what I always say. I believe anger is our built-in mechanism to deal with fear.

If you apply the right rules to our anger, we can effectively deal with fear. The Bible says to be angry and do not sin. The idea that we are going to be angry, but we should not sin. So anger is going to happen, but here's the key. Anger properly managed is the key to freedom from fear.

And by the way, that's a pretty scary guy right there on the screen. I just need to tell you that. Anger properly managed is the key to freedom from fear. But typically there are three things we do when we get angry. Let's talk about them.

We either internalize our anger, which hurts us. We vent our anger, which oftentimes hurts other people, or we can do the right thing and control our anger. Let's talk about those for a little bit. What happens when we internalize our anger? Well, when we internalize our anger, it affects us in four ways.

It affects us physically. It affects us emotionally. It affects us spiritually. And it affects us mentally. There are some symptoms associated with these four areas.

Let's explore them physically. How does anger affect us physically? Well, sometimes there'll be physiological things that will happen in our body. Sometimes you'll be grinding your teeth, maybe, or you have a stiff or sore neck. There are physiological things that play itself out as a result of emotions that are not dealt with internally.

I remember years ago when I was in the business world, I think I've already told you there was this man I really didn't like very much. And one night, my wife pokes me and wakes me up and says, Wake up, you're making these funny noises. And I wasn't snoring. My wife figured out how to cure my snoring. She would not have bought a set of earplugs.

And now every time I snore, she shoves them up my nose. That's actually not true. But anyway, the idea is that we can really have physiological things that happen in our body as a result of not dealing with internalized anger. So physically, it's very important. The next thing is emotionally.

We can become bored or depressed for no reason. We can become cynical and sarcastic, overly drained emotionally by not dealing with anger that's suppressed inside of us. So emotionally is not good. Here's a really bad one, spiritually. It can become a hindrance to our spiritual growth.

The Bible says we can't love God and hate our brother. We can have difficulty with our prayer life. This is a really big one, guys. I have really struggled with this over the years. By harboring anger, I find that I really can't get close to God.

It's very, very difficult. And then also, mentally, we can procrastinate. We can always late. We have bad dreams sometimes. We can keep on reliving the thoughts that occupy our mind.

We can have an unconscious focus on the wrong kinds of things. I remember mentally, I really didn't like this guy very well. And I remember a coworker came up to me one day and said, Vince, you know what? I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk about this guy all the time. And I said, well, why is that?

He says, because everything you're telling me that this man has done to you, you do the very same things. And I said, what? And he began to show me that, in fact, I was doing the very same things. In fact, that's when I had my Nathan experience. You know, David went to Nathan and began to describe this fictitious character.

And Nathan went to David and David said, Nathan, who are you talking about? And Nathan said, well, David, that's you. That same thing happened to me. Romans 2, 1-3 says this, you therefore have no excuse. You who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you're condemning yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things.

In Proverbs, it says, do not make friends with a hot tempered man. Do not associate with one easily angered or you may what? Learn his ways and get yourself ensnared. Listen, guys, you become like the people you focus on. That can happen in good ways and it can happen in negative ways.

So very important to understand these things. Now, the second area is venting. In the first area, if we don't do something about that, it hurts us internally. In this area, this can hurt other people. Now, because I'm Italian, I'm going to tell you up front, I am a professional venter.

And I'm not very proud of some of the venting that I did in my younger days, but venting is not healthy. In Proverbs 29-22, it says this, an angry man stirs up dissension and a hot tempered one commits many sins. In Ecclesiastes 14-17, it says, a quick tempered man does foolish things and a crafty man is hated. I can't tell you how many times that I've been angry and said foolish things. In Ecclesiastes 7-9, do not be quickly provoked in your spirit.

It says, for anger resides in the laps of fools. And the Bible is very clear about this, but anger lived out in a venting way is very dangerous. And in our culture today, it almost seems like the more enlightened we become, the more stuff we have, the angrier we are. And when I was growing up, listen guys, there was no such thing as road rage. We didn't hear about road rage.

Here's a hideous one, shaken baby syndrome. I don't know if you know what that means, but this is when people get so angry with a baby that won't stop crying that they literally shake them to death because their little brains are not formed properly in their brain cavity and they shake them to death because they become so angry. When we get angry like this, unfortunately it can involve yelling but also beating. We say things we don't mean and oftentimes we hear things that are not even said. The Bible says that the tongue has the power of life and death.

The old nursery rhyme that says, sticks and stones may hurt my bones, but names will never hurt me. What a lie. What a lie. Listen, there are men that are watching this right now. You've got scars on your soul from words that were spoken into your life when you were a little boy or perhaps as recently as yesterday.

Words hurt. So what should we do? The idea here is that we need to control our anger. The Bible says in Proverbs 21, a fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man says what? Keeps himself under control.

Proverbs 16, 32. Better a patient man than a warrior. A man who controls his temper than one who takes a city. So listen, let me finish this by talking about what I believe are three important keys to controlling our anger. Key number one is, listen, bring it to God now.

Bring it to who? Bring it to God. That verse that says, in your anger do not sin, Ephesians 4, 26, do not let the sun go down while you're still angry. Listen men, that is not a license to go grab the other person before the sun goes down. What that verse is saying to you is, listen, look at me, you deal with your anger before the sun goes down.

It has nothing to do with the other person. Bring it to God. And remember, in Romans 8, 28, it says, and we know that on all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. It's very important that you, in dealing with your anger, that you do not focus on people. Focus on what happened, not the people involved.

Examine the cause of your anger, both the facts and the feelings. Maybe you were passed up for that promotion at work. The feeling is rejection or maybe it's pride. There are always facts and feelings. God knows it.

Ask God to show you, Lord, how should I view this? How should I be dealing with this? Number two, give up your rights. Wow, who is a model for giving up our rights? Jesus himself, he gave up, listen, he gave up his right to be God, to come down here to this planet and walk around on this dirt ball for you and me.

We have no rights to be looking at. Learn to give up your rights. Learn to let that go and to focus on him. And then number three is to be quick to forgive. Be quick to forgive.

The Bible says in Romans 12, 17, do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. And in Proverbs 19, 11, it says, listen, a man's wisdom gives him patience. It is to his glory to overlook an offense. You know what that means, Christian?

Learn to become unoffendable. The word there, overlook, is the Hebrew word A-bar. It literally means to pass over or to move beyond. Now, in keeping with our promise, let's explore life implication and life application as we move into our discussion time. What is the life implication of not dealing with anger?

A failure to control or manage our anger will hurt us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Powerful, powerful ramifications of not dealing effectively with anger. We really need to look at these things. And if you've got some of these symptoms, take a look at your own life and ask yourself and ask God to help you. Lord, am I not dealing with these things properly?

Okay? Life application? Here are your discussion questions. Do you have a tendency to internalize, vent, or control your anger? Talk about that.

Number two, how will you deal with your anger differently as a result of this session? Let the men in your group help you process that and maybe come out with some commitments. And then finally, number three, is there someone you need to forgive and reconcile with? This can really hamstring you if you're not able to do that. Listen, guys, until next time, I really pray God really visits you in your discussion time.

And I really don't want you to forget about it. Thank you.