The disciples watched Jesus pray. The New Testament records him praying thirty-four times, and they were often in the room for it. Prayer is still the one subject in the Gospels where they came to him and asked directly to be taught: "Lord, teach us to pray." In week four of the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Julie Hamilton opens Matthew 6:5-13 and starts with a quilt. It was made for her as a child, it is worn and frayed now and lives in a closet, and it has part of a prayer stitched onto it that she recited every night while climbing underneath. "Before I even knew my soul and body could be parted, my mouth prayed words with eternal implication." Before Jesus hands over the model, he clears two things out of the way. There is prayer as performance - the street-corner prayers timed and positioned for maximum visibility, which Jesus says have already been paid in full by the applause they were aimed at. And there is prayer as magic formula - heaping up words as though God has to be worn down or brought up to speed. Then comes the hinge of the passage: "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." If God already knows, the reason to pray has to be something other than getting him the information. Relationship. Trust. Alignment. In Methodist language, prevenient grace - God already at work ahead of us, before we know to ask. What Jesus gives next is a pattern for a heart pointed the right way, which is a very different thing from a formula to recite. It moves through four movements: the address, the priorities, the provision, and the praise. Four words of it - "Our Father in heaven" - carry intimacy, community and transcendence at the same time. And the prayer closes where it opened, pointing back at God. Series: Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount Speaker: Pastor Julie Hamilton Scripture: Matthew 6:5-13 Recorded: September 6, 2026 New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida - findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

Most of us are happy to bring God our requests. We are much less happy to have anyone tell us how to live. In week three of the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Roberto Chaple opens Matthew 5:38-48 - turn the other cheek, hand over your coat, go the second mile, love your enemies - and puts each one back in the world it was spoken into. "Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth" reads as savagery now, but it began as a ceiling. The principle runs through Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and shows up in the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi around 1750 BC, and its whole purpose was to stop a slap becoming a feud. Damage control, which is roughly what human justice still is. Jesus takes his hearers past that ceiling into something considerably less reasonable. A slap to the right cheek had to be a backhand, and Jewish law treated the backhand as the especially degrading version - the message being "you are beneath me." Turning the other cheek hands that message back. And the verb behind "forces you to go one mile" is Roman conscription language, the same word used when soldiers pulled Simon of Cyrene out of the crowd to carry a cross. It ends on the word we all stumble over. "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." The Greek is teleios: complete, whole, mature. Something is teleios when it has become what it was made to be. New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida - findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

What does it mean to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world? Rev. Vicki Harrison opens Matthew 5:13-16 to explore what Jesus says about the identity and calling of his followers in this message from the Sermon on the Mount. Scripture: Matthew 5:13-16 Series: Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida — findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

Jesus opens the most famous sermon in history by calling the poorest, most overlooked people in the crowd blessed. In the launch of New Hope Church's fall series, Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Vicki Harrison opens the Beatitudes in Matthew 5. Before she reads a word, she names the ground the whole series stands on: New Hope is unapologetically Jesus-centered. Then she reframes the Beatitudes in a way that reorders everything. They are not commands to obey. They are Jesus naming who already belongs in God's kingdom. Set against the hard realities of the first-century world, deep poverty, Roman taxes, and constant grief, Jesus' words turn the world's rules about who counts upside down. This message closes with three honest questions worth carrying into your week. Title: Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount: The World According to Jesus | Rev. Vicki Harrison Series: Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida - findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

What does it mean to be the family of God? Rev. Vicki Harrison opens Matthew 12:50 and 1 Timothy 3:15 to explore what it means for the church to be the household of God — and how that shapes everything about how we live and belong together. Scripture: Matthew 12:50, 1 Timothy 3:15, Matthew 5:1-2 Series: (standalone message) Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida — findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

Rev. Vicki Harrison opens this Communion Sunday message with a focus on what the Lord's Supper means — the act of remembrance Jesus commanded, and the gospel it proclaims each time we gather at the table. Series: Communion Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida — findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

What does it mean to be Made New? On Baptism Sunday at New Hope Church, Rev. Vicki Harrison opened Acts 22:6–16 alongside 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 3:27, and 1 Corinthians 12:13 to explore what baptism really means — not just as a ritual, but as a public declaration that you belong to Jesus. Baptism is an outward and visible sign of an inward grace. It tells the world that you have started a new life following Jesus — not just repentance of sin, but a commitment to walk in Christ. And as 1 Corinthians 12:13 makes clear, it is your official welcome party into God's family, the church. Series: Baptism Sunday (standalone) Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida — findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

What does it really mean when words are "more than words"?

In this final message from the Words Matter series, Pastor Roberto Chaple opens Matthew 12:35–37 — where Jesus tells us that our words aren't just words. They're a window into what we've been storing up in our hearts. They carry weight with consequences that outlast the moment. And they hold eternal significance.

Roberto walks through three movements from the passage:

• What our words reveal — pressure doesn't create what's inside you, it reveals it
• Why there's no return policy on the things we say, and how we become prisoners of our own words
• Why the most important thing any of us will ever say is yes — or no — to Jesus

If you've been holding onto confessions made out of a temporary emotion, this message is an invitation to put an expiration date on them.

Series: Words Matter | Speaker: Pastor Roberto Chaple | New Hope Church, Brandon FL

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James 1:19 tells us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. In this message from the Words Matter series, Rev. Vicki Harrison opens James 1:19 and 3:13-18 to explore the contrast between earthly wisdom and the wisdom that comes from above. Earthly wisdom brings bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. Heavenly wisdom is pure, peaceable, gentle, and full of mercy. This message calls us to examine not just what we say, but the wisdom that shapes it. Series: Words Matter Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison New Hope Church | Brandon, Florida — findnewhope.com Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive

What if the words you speak reveal more about your faith than you realize? In this message from the Words Matter series, Rev. Vicki Harrison opens James 3 to explore one of scripture's most challenging passages — the tongue.

James uses three unforgettable images to describe the power of words: a horse controlled by a small metal bit, a great ship steered by a tiny rudder, and a forest set ablaze by a single spark. The same is true of the tongue. It is small. It is powerful. And no human being can tame it alone.

Rev. Harrison traces the damage that words leave behind — from childhood bullying to the rotten, poisonous speech the apostle Paul calls sapros in Ephesians 4. She draws from her years as a social worker and pastor: adults still agonizing over words spoken over them as children, wounds that run deep and shape the entire course of a life.

But this message is not only a diagnosis. It is a challenge. As followers of Jesus, you have the ability to change the narrative — to represent Christ in what you say, what you text, what you post, and what you choose not to say at all. Closing with Psalm 19:14: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.

Series: Words Matter | Speaker: Rev. Vicki Harrison | Church: New Hope Church — Brandon, Florida Watch and listen to past messages: findnewhope.com/message-archive