If you meet a prideful sinner.
How would you tell him about Jesus, in order that he would be saved.
Keeping in mind, he will do what you say.
All anyone does in coming to salvation is receive/respond to the "work" of God. God convicts the sinner of his sin (
John 16:8); God illuminates the sinner's understanding (
John 16:13); God draws the sinner to faith in Christ (
John 6:44); God humbles the sinner, too, enabling him to repent (
2 Timothy 2:25; Philippians 2:13). To all of these things, the sinner must respond by
receiving what God has done for him through Christ (
John 1:12; Colossians 2:6). What, then, of the work you imply is an unavoidable element in salvation? Does a patient receiving life-saving brain surgery, help the surgeon operate on his brain? No. He just lays on the operating table, unconscious, and receives the work of the surgeon upon his brain. Does a drowned man contribute to his resuscitation? Can he give himself CPR, or mouth-to-mouth? Obviously not.
Entirely passively, he must receive the saving work of others, being totally unable to help himself. So, too, the lost sinner. He is "dead in trespasses and sins" (
Ephesians 2:1), thoroughly in bondage to the world, his own flesh, and the devil. He cannot free himself. Paul, then, is correct:
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Titus 3:5-7
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
In light of these things, I would simply share with the prideful man the Gospel, knowing that it is the "power of God unto salvation" (
Romans 1:16). And I would pray that God would do what only He can do in making the prideful man response-able to His saving call.
What steps would he need to take, that aren't works, in order to be saved.
Any steps we take toward salvation are the consequence of God's work in us. We only work out what
He has first worked into us (
Philippians 2:12-13) by the convicting, illuminating and persuading work of the Holy Spirit.