Okay, based on what you changed in your edit, if you set the text view in question to "wrap_content" for both layout_width and layout_height, it should work as intended.
<TextView
android:id="@+id/textviewnomessageslabel"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="You have no messages."
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
android:textColor="#0000FF"
android:layout_centerInParent="true" />
You should also set your listview to be below your top text view, which becomes the following:
<ListView
android:id="@+id/listviewmessages"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_below="@id/textviewmessageslabel"
android:background="#ccffffff"
android:cacheColorHint="#0000"
android:padding="5dp" >
</ListView>