Learning chord progressions will be one of the first things beginner guitarists will want to do, since once you learn some chords and strumming, you'll be able to make real music, good sounding music by playing chord progressions. Once you learn the underlying theory behind chords and scales, you'll be able to make up literally thousands of chord progressions on your own, so it really is a worthwhile investment of your time.
Strictly speaking, chord progressions are a series of musical chords that aim to establish a tonality founded on a key (chord progressions can be played in any key). All scales contain 7 musical notes, and finding the right chord progression in a given key is just a matter of calculating the chords on a given scale. You can also add additional notes to the chords while playing chord progressions, allowing for a virtually unlimited number of possible progressions.