Connecting to the internet and outputting to a display isn't my concern here. I'm more confused about how I could tell the NodeMCU to gather the date and time from the internet. This is my first time actually doing anything internet enabled before so I'm pretty lost on it. If you know how to do this and wouldn't mind sharing then I'd appreciate it very much. Thanks.
You can poll the ntp time pool and make the clock based upon that. There is code on here somewhere written by a forum member that does just that including timezone correction.
I've used it to produce a digital clock which is part of my home automation system. If you want just the code then pm me, if you want to determine it yourself the look up ntp time.