As a sample sermon, Mormon’s example shows that explaining scripture for greater understanding is a useful model. He begins with references that can be traced to Christ’s sermons in the New World (which also trace to the Sermon on the Mount in the Old World). Thus, be begins by saying that he can understand their “peaceable walk with the children of men” because of their good works (verses 4-5). In the Sermon at the Temple, the phrase was “by their fruits ye shall know them” (3 Nephi 14:20).
From the concept that we can be known by our good works, Mormon moves to the importance of the motivation behind the good works. He calls on two themes from Christ’s sermons. The first is “Or what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (3 Nephi 14:9–11).
Those verses set up the relationship between the moral character and the giving of the gift, or, in the new context, the works. Nevertheless, Mormon understands that there is a possibility that one could do work without the correct motivation. To resolve that, he again refers obliquely to the Sermon’s several discussions of hypocrisy. When one does something for the praise of men, and receives the praise of men, Christ declared that “they have their reward” (3 Nephi 13:16).
It is possible that the more direct reference was “Therefore, if ye shall come unto me, or shall desire to come unto me, and rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee—Go thy way unto thy brother, and first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I will receive you.” (3 Nephi 12:23–24).
However, it appears to have retained more of the Old World context than appears in our translation. The corresponding verse explains why the word gift appears in the reference: “Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift” (Matthew 5:23–24).