Jesus said, in John 3:3, A man must be born again.
In Luke 23:39-43, Jesus tells the man to His right, this day you will be in Paradise with Me.
The man had, confessed that Jesus was God, that he was a sinner worthy of death and asked Jesus to forgive him and let him be His slave.
There is nothing in the Bible, that I know of or that the Pastor knows of that precludes doing more, only that doing less cannot comply.
In James, the half brother of Jesus, James says that he shows his salvation by his works and that faith without works is dead.
**In James, the half brother of Jesus**
No, they were cousins.