My Salvation Story

I was fortunate to be born and raised in a loving Christian home. My Dad was a pastor in the Congregational Church and a man of enormous faith in God who I loved and respected greatly. In my world, my Dad was the greatest man to live in the twentieth century bar none. Growing up in the church, from my earliest recollection, I always considered myself to be a Christian. But it was not until after my Dad died at 58 years old that I realized I was actually a nominal, lukewarm, corporate Christian. Sure, I knew all the prayers, hymns, creeds, rituals, etc., of the church, but I did not personally know Jesus for myself. I only knew Jesus through my Dad! It was only years after my Dad passed away that I discovered I had wrongly placed my faith in my Dad, and not in Jesus Christ to save me!

But by God’s infinite love, mercy, and grace, the greatest gift I ever received was when God woke me up to the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Like Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb saying, “Lazarus, come out,” God woke me from the dead! He opened my eyes to see, my ears to hear, my mind to understand, and my heart to love Jesus. God did this…I did not. And God has graciously continued to work mightily in my life ever since to see Jesus as the most precious treasure in my entire life. To live is Christ…to die is gain!

Looking back I now realize that there were significant and sustained periods of time in my life where I did not keep God’s commands...even those as basic as the 10 Commandments. No, I did not murder anyone and I did not steal, but I realize that I did not always take seriously, fully appreciate, or completely understand the first four commandments of the Bible...those pertaining to our relationship with God. Instead, I tended to focus on the last six commandments of the Bible...the ones that describe our relationship with others. These are the commands that always made sense to me and seemed more relevant, like respecting parents, not committing adultery, stealing, killing, lying, or coveting.

But in spite of my more “conscious” focus on the last six Biblical commands, I must admit I did not always do a good job of keeping these more “obvious” and “relevant” commands either...if in letter, then not in spirit! In retrospect however, I realize my most flagrant sin was perhaps violating the Second Commandment of God which essentially says we are not to make or worship false idols or false representations of Him.

To me, this commandment seemed pretty clear and simple to execute. In my mind, I was certainly not guilty of idol worship, as there were no wooden statues or pagan altars in my home or in my church. I figured I had this commandment fairly well covered so I could check it off my list and move on to the next one. However, hindsight is 20/20.

Upon serious reflection, I realize that during more times in my life than I would like to admit, I was worshipping a false idol...a false representation of God...and most definitely not the one true God of the Bible. I was being idolatrous!

At that time I tended to see God the way I wanted to see Him. I molded God into an image that best fit me...an image that was comfortable for me...an image that worked for my lifestyle and the choices I was making! As such, I became quite pleased and comfortable with the “Christian” I had become.

The God I created was in my own image, and He never inconvenienced me or disrupted my life. The God I created and worshipped never made demands on my time, my money, my social life, or me. Whenever I ran into a problematic Bible passage that challenged my way of thinking, I had a default response that said, “that verse was written a long time ago so it doesn’t apply to me today,” or “this story is just a fable or an allegory and doesn’t really mean what it appears to say,” or simply, “I don’t get it, I don’t know the original Hebrew or Greek, so let’s move on.” When all else failed, I would easily default to the fact that the God I created knows my heart and wants me to be happy...and then proceed to do as I pleased to make myself happy. After all, in my mind, the highest priority of my false idol God was my happiness as I defined it, because God is love and He wants me to always be happy and content…or so I thought, I’m embarrassed to say.

Finally, in thinking back, it is amazing to me that whenever I thought about any issue of import on which I had a strong opinion, it never dawned on me or seemed odd or strange to me that God always seemed to agree with me and be on my side! Not once did I even remotely think my opinion or perspective on anything might be at odds with the true will of Almighty God! Absolutely unbelievable and totally unacceptable! I still get chills today just thinking about what I was doing and how disobedient I was being to the loving God who created me.

In retrospect, I realize I was essentially telling myself, “Look, you’re a good person…you believe in God…and you’re certainly better than a lot of other folks out there. You give your time and your money to worthwhile causes, you go to church...and you don’t do any ‘really’ bad things. So what else could God possibly want from me? Open the gates to heaven, I’m good to go!” I do not think it is particularly hard to see how wrong I was and how terribly detrimental this kind of thinking is. And this thinking cost me dearly many times in my life!

Then one evening about 20 years ago, as only He can, God touched me and showed me the one true God of the universe! I thank God today and every day for revealing to me who He truly is...through His creation…His Holy Word...our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...and the workings of the Holy Spirit! Since that day, the Spirit of God has worked in increasingly powerful ways in my life to produce more and more spiritual fruit, by transforming my heart, my nature, my desires, and my actions to be more and more like Jesus. I am still woefully imperfect, and I always will be in this lifetime. But I am steadily walking toward the narrow gate on the path toward the righteousness and holiness required by God. And I am looking forward to the future with confident hope to the day when Christ my Savior returns, and I will be glorified and made perfect in heaven, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever! Praise God!

My Personal and Professional Life

Bradley Thurston Sheares is the former Chief Executive Officer of Reliant Pharmaceuticals and the former President of U.S. Human Health at Merck. Currently, Brad serves on the board of directors of Henry Schein, and he previously served on the boards of Progressive, Honeywell, Covance and IMS Health. Brad also served as vice chair of the board of trustees of Spelman College and has been a member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Brad was born in upstate New York and raised in Chicago. After attending public schools, he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Fisk University, and earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University. He was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow and a Lucille P. Markey Scholar at the Center for Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Brad’s research interests included the biochemistry of glycoprotein synthesis and gene regulation of cholesterol synthesis.

Brad joined Merck as a Laboratory Research Fellow in 1987 and was named President of Merck’s U.S. pharmaceutical business in 2001. As president, in addition to having profit and loss responsibility for a $15 billion business, Brad was a member of Merck’s Management Committee, and served a term as chair of the board of directors of the National Pharmaceutical Council. While at Merck, Brad led the commercial launch in the U.S. of CRIXIVAN, an HIV protease inhibitor and a critical component of a multi drug cocktail that revolutionized the treatment of HIV disease in the developed world.

After 19 years at Merck, Brad joined Reliant Pharmaceuticals as Chief Executive Officer in January 2007. There, he assembled a seasoned executive management team, restructured the company’s debt, developed a comprehensive strategic business plan, and successfully executed a dual path IPO/M&A process that resulted in the sale of Reliant to GlaxoSmithKline in December 2007.

Brad is the recipient of numerous awards, including honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Fisk University and Purdue University. He has been featured in many articles and publications, including the cover of Fortune Magazine, “Meet Corporate America’s NextGeneration of Leaders,” and Fortune Magazine’s “Most Powerful Black Executives” list.

Brad has been married for almost 20 years to the love of his life, Adrienne Denise Simmons, an Attorney and Certified Public Accountant. Brad also has three adult daughters, who are “angels” from God in his life: Adrienne Stinnette Sheares (37) a Social Media Consultant in Washington D.C.; Dr. Alicia Myles Sheares (34) a Professor of Management Sciences and Engineering at Stanford University; and Anita Vivian Sheares (31) an MBA Candidate at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (May 2024).

The Sheares family actively supports and contributes to various Christian organizations that unapologetically spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ while sharing the love of Christ with people in need. The Sheares Family Charitable Foundation was established in 2008 to support the Sheares family’s philanthropic goals.