A library that I wrote myLib uses RemoteMessage from Firebase, the app itself also uses Firebase.
Using gradle 4.7
Faced with similar issue while upgrading to 3.3.1
Fixed it by downgrading to 3.2.1
We can use firebase version >=15 with 3.2.1
I faced a similar issue in past few days with.
implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-auth:15.0.0'
implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:15.0.0'
solution was to either downgrade to
implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-auth:12.0.1'
implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging:12.0.1'
or consider leaving Google Cloud Services and upgrading to FCM entirely
Note that they have different version numbers you can look it up here
Below steps worked for me ---
jcentre() method. jcenter() methods to the bottom inside its block.  I got this error when I use google-services:3.3.0.
Downgrade to classpath 'com.google.gms:google-services:3.2.1' in your project .gradle.
It should solve the issue.
Update: It should probably not occur in the current versions.
The google-services gradle plugin is made to work with Google Play Services and Firebase 15+, but you're using it with version 12.0.1.
The solution is to either:
15+ (note that they have different versions now)google-services upgrade to 3.3.0 until you upgrade to
15+, that is, downgrading the gradle plugin to version 3.2.1.EDIT 1: There's a known issue about using google-services 3.3 in multimodule apps. That means downgrading to google-services to 3.2.1 may be your only option until a new version that fixes the bug is released.
EDIT 2: The bug mentioned above has been fixed in the version 4.0.1 of the google-services gradle  plugin! (and the version 4.0.2 also fixes an NPE that occurred in some cases)
BTW, you should move to FCM. GCM will stop working in a not too distant future.