I downloaded and listened to this sermon last week. Powerful explication of John 3:8. listen to, watch or read the whole thing.
So the point so far is that the wind is mysterious. It has a will of its own, so to speak. It comes and it goes by its own laws. We don’t control it. We didn’t then. And we don’t now 2,000 years later. The wind is free. We do not decide what the wind does. The wind does what the wind does.
The Decisive Act—The Wind’s, Not Ours
Then Jesus makes the comparison with the Spirit’s work explicit. Verse 8: You have heard how the wind works . . . “so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Literally: “In this way is everyone who is born for the Spirit.” You have heard how the wind works . . . “in this way everyone who is born of the Spirit comes into being.” The point of emphasizing the freedom of the wind in producing its effects is to make plain the freedom of the Spirit in producing people who are born again.
So what verse 8 is teaching is this: We don’t cause the Spirit to bring about the new birth any more than we make the wind blow. Or to be more specific, the decisive act of will in the new birth is not ours. The Spirit’s will is decisive. To be sure, our will moves in the moment of the new birth. Change happens in us. There are perceptible effects of the wind—“ you hear its sound.”
The main effect of the wind—the Spirit—is that we are made alive spiritually—born again—and now our wills move. They move to receive Christ and believe on Christ. But our wills move because the wind is blowing, not the other way around. We don’t move first. Our wills are awakened and moved toward Christ because the Spirit blows where he wills and gives life to whom he wills.