iMessage entries appearing in wrong order

When using iMessage my entries are not being shown in the order in which they are sent and received. For example, instead of getting the following:

Sent 1
    Received 1
Sent 2
    Received 2
Sent 3
    Received 3

I get the following:

Sent 1
Sent 2
Sent 3
    Received 1
    Received 2
    Received 3

How can I make the messages appear in proper "chat" order?

The entries should be displayed in time stamp order. That fact that your are not just occasionally wrong but seemingly always wrong suggests that you or the receiving end has a problem with their date and time settings.

If one of your phones is out by just a few minutes, I would expect this problem only to crop up if you are replying to each other quite quickly. If many messages can go by before switching from sender to receiver, then there could be a wider gap.

Check out Settings > General > Date & Time and check if you or the other phone have manually set a date or time that could be different from each other. If you both use Set Automatically it should prevent these problems. Check your timezone also.

Many users use this technology to get their iMessages back to normal, so I want to share them with you.

First, open Settings, then click General -> Date & Time. Then, turn off the switch next to the auto setup - when the switch is on the left, you will know that it is off.

Now open the application switcher and close the messaging application. On iPhone 8 or earlier, double-click the Home button and then swipe up and down the Messaging app. On iPhone X, swipe up from the bottom of the screen to open the app switcher. Then, hold down the preview of the messaging app until the red minus button appears in the top left corner of the app preview. Finally, click the red minus button to close the messaging application.

Now reopen the messaging app on the iPhone - your iMessages should be in the correct order! Now you can go back to Settings -> General -> Date & Time and reopen the automatic settings.

If this method fails, don't worry, there are other ways.