Apparently the JIRA Issues Macro used to have the ability to define sorting and pagination. CONF-29991 addressed this concern, but sorting was never introduced as a parameter that can be defined on the macro itself. Instead, sorting is undefined when the table is loaded and the viewer of the page can sort as they like.

The initial sorting should be able to be defined so that the document can display issues in the order the document embedding the view is concerned with (e.g. fixVersion, updated, etc.). Interaction with the table should be left in (could be an option to disable even).

If adding it to the macro parameters is undesirable for some reason, the macro should at least respect the sorting that the filter itself defines. It currently does not, as mentioned here: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/228129/answers/9871223?flashId=-257275889

Workaround

Using the direct JQL instead of a filter allows the JIRA Issues macro to respect the ORDER BY clause of the query.