Init commit with many years of arduino sketches and projects. I dont know if the esp8266 includes much, but there are also libraries. I hope they dont have crazy automatic versioning through the Arduino IDE.

libraries/Arduino-LiquidCrystal-I2C-library-master/examples/SerialDisplay/SerialDisplay.ino

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+/**
+ * Displays text sent over the serial port (e.g. from the Serial Monitor) on
+ * an attached LCD.
+ */
+#include <Wire.h> 
+#include <LiquidCrystal_I2C.h>
+
+// Set the LCD address to 0x27 for a 16 chars and 2 line display
+LiquidCrystal_I2C lcd(0x27, 16, 2);
+
+void setup()
+{
+	lcd.begin();
+	lcd.backlight();
+  
+	// Initialize the serial port at a speed of 9600 baud
+	Serial.begin(9600);
+}
+
+void loop()
+{
+	// If characters arrived over the serial port...
+	if (Serial.available()) {
+		// Wait a bit for the entire message to arrive
+		delay(100);
+		// Clear the screen
+		lcd.clear();
+
+		// Write all characters received with the serial port to the LCD.
+		while (Serial.available() > 0) {
+			lcd.write(Serial.read());
+		}
+	}
+}