diff --git a/pkg/engine/engine.go b/pkg/engine/engine.go
index 1cc94d685..94ab1da95 100644
--- a/pkg/engine/engine.go
+++ b/pkg/engine/engine.go
@@ -213,6 +213,7 @@ func (e Engine) renderWithReferences(tpls, referenceTpls map[string]renderable)
 	// We want to parse the templates in a predictable order. The order favors
 	// higher-level (in file system) templates over deeply nested templates.
 	keys := sortTemplates(tpls)
+	referenceKeys := sortTemplates(referenceTpls)
 
 	for _, filename := range keys {
 		r := tpls[filename]
@@ -223,8 +224,9 @@ func (e Engine) renderWithReferences(tpls, referenceTpls map[string]renderable)
 
 	// Adding the reference templates to the template context
 	// so they can be referenced in the tpl function
-	for filename, r := range referenceTpls {
+	for _, filename := range referenceKeys {
 		if t.Lookup(filename) == nil {
+			r := referenceTpls[filename]
 			if _, err := t.New(filename).Parse(r.tpl); err != nil {
 				return map[string]string{}, cleanupParseError(filename, err)
 			}